H OassJSX- 4- £ If Book /TU - 1 '•• p FEMALE CONVENTS. SECRETS NUNNERIES DISCLOSED COMPILED FROM THE AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS SCIPIO DE RICC I, XOMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF P1STOIA AND PRATO. BY MR. DE POTTER. EDITED BY THOMAS ROSCOE. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AND APPENDIX. Aeu£o, f$ei£w rfoi rrjv (xyjrS^a twv tfopv NEW YORK: P. APPI.F.TON A CO., 200 BROAPWAV. 1834 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834 by D. APPLETON & CO., In the clerk's office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. WK. VAN NORDKN, l'RINT. NOTICE The ensuing disclosures respecting Monachism and Pope- ry are' selected from the " Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, late Bishop of Pistoia and PratoJ Reformer of Catholicism in Tus- cany, during the reign of Leopold. Compiled from the auto- graph manuscripts of that Prelate. ; Edited from the original of Mr. de Potter, by Thomas Roscoe." London, 1829.' Almost one half of the two original volumes are filled with the history of Italy during the period subsequent to the French revolution in 1789, and with incidental notices of Ricci's private life, and that of his numerous friends and cor- respondents. Nearly all those political and military details are omitted ; because the sole objects designed by the present publication are these; to unfold the genuine and unvarying vraclices of male and female convents ; and to demonstrate, that the claims of the Papacy are totally incompatible with civil and religious liber'y, and equally destructive of indi- vidual dignity, social decorum, and national intelligence and enjoyments . As the present work is reprinted from the " Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci," with those alterations only which were in- dispensable to preserve the continuity of the narrative ; the English editor's preface imparts all requisite information con- cerning this most valuable andMnteresting development of the character of nunneries, the motives and arts of the Papal priesthood, and the immutable and universally mischievous and detestable policy of the Pontiff's and ecclesiastical Court of Rome. PREFACE BY THOMAS ROSCOE. Scipio de Ricci deservedly ranks among the sincere and venerable defenders of religious truth and liberty : and Mr. de Potter, in collecting these materials, has performed a task very acceptable to the students of contemporary history. During the agitating and fearful drama of the eighteenth century, when liberty herself was desecrated by being allied with Atheism, and made the enemy of outraged humanity, the Bishop of Prato and Pistoia planned a system of reform which would have established the freedom of his countrymen on true moral, intellectual, and religious improvement. The most zealous enemy of injustice in states and governments was not more opposed to oppression, nor more fervent in his desire of seeing mankind emancipated from every species of tyrannous thraldom ; but he was superior in his design to the spirit of the age. He desired reform civil and ecclesiastic ; and endeavored to pursue a line of action, which, if success- ful, would have led to the establishment of religious and moral improvement in the Italian States. The narrative of the struggles, of the hardships and afflic- tions, which this prelate had to encounter in carrying on his re- forms, is a most interesting biography. Emancipating himself from the trammels of falsehood and superstition, he appears to have been carried forward by the purity and moral correct- ness of his feelings, and by the exercise of an ingenuous mind in the defence of truth and right. But Ricci, though possessing all the virtues of humanity, and all the sincerity which should form the character of a reformer, was wanting in those sterner elements which are requisite to a man stand- ing in the situation that he occupied. His good sense and his love of truth excited his hatred of the base and enslaving 1* PREFACE. superstitions with which he saw religion corrupted. His hu- manity made him wish to see his fellow creatures freed from such degradation ; but his spirit, never bold enough to main- tain such a situation, failed him. His ideas of the duty of submission, united with the natural mildness of his character, confounded the plain and obvious reasoning which a stronger mind would have employed ; and he fell a victim to his own want of determination, and to the artifices of the common enemies of himself, of liberty, and of religion. Many papers of the immense mass of documents which the original Editor of Ricci's Life has printed, could only be valu. able to those who require to be told, that where superstition and political profligacy reign in their most degraded forms, morality and decency must be entirely forgotten. As the vices of the monks and nuns are sufficiently exposed, we have, therefore, spared the reader the disgusting toil of perusing details which would add no additional proof to a truth already known. The original work, of which all the valuable and important parts are here presented to the reader, was composed from the autograph manuscripts and private memorials of Ricci. They were furnished to the Editor by the nephew of the Prelate ; and no doubt exists respecting their authenticity. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Among "the signs of the times," no one is more replete with melancholy forebodings, than the rapid extension of the monastic system, both in these United States and in Britain. Three hundred years ago, the English Monasteries and Nun- neries were demolished by act of parliament ; the preamble of which alleged as the cause of their dissolution, the inde- scribable turpitude and innumerable atrocities, which were inseparable from their very existence. Throughout all the protestant countries, since the reformation of the sixteenth century, male and female Convents have been abhorred, not only by all Christians, but by every wise and good citizen. They have almost disappeared from France, and in Spain they are hastening to extinction ; in Portugal they have been de- stroyed ; and in no country on earth, except in this Federal Republic and the British dominions, are they viewed in any other aspect, than as objects of detestation, domicils of inor- dinate wickedness, or dungeons of unmitigable despair. During the last five years, many ineffectual attempts have been made to arrest the attention of American Protestants to the true character and pernicious results of the monkish life. The conflagration of the Ursuline Nunnery at Charles- town, however, has elicited a regard to the subject, which it is proper should be improved; and to impress and enlighten the public mind, no mode seemed to be equally adapted, as a selection from the authentic materials of which the ensuing work is composed. The testimony is unexceptionable ; being that of a Roman Catholic Prelate, who was commissioned by a Prince subject to the Papal jurisdiction, expressly to inves- tigate the arcana of conventual life ; and it was compiled by Vlll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. a Civilian connected with the Roman hierarchy. The docu- ments, therefore, cannot be objected to as of Protestant origin ; because every fact is affirmed upon the authority of the Roman Prelate, and his Papal coadjutors, or of his deceitful and fero- cious persecutors. The succeeding narrative illustrates the two most impress- ive topics appertaining to popery, which American citizens can contemplate. Very little reference is made in this work to the theological portions of Romanism. Proselytes to Je- suitism are not collected in this country by the exhibition of the Popish idolatrous ritual, or the blasphemy of the Mass, or the absurdities of transubstantiation, or ludicrous delineations of purgatory, or the obscenities of auricular confession, or the usurped claim to govern conscience and to pardon sin, or even by the all absorbing assumption of infallibility. The primary allurement is, the fraudulent pretext of a superior education, to be obtained through their instrumentality, and the crafty adhesion to the strongest political party, which may temporarily gain the ascendency. Thus it is demonstrated, that the community of Papists in every Protestant country, are a distinct and isolated body, having no common interests with the other part of society ; and always prepared to seize every opportunity to grasp power, and extend their pestiferous in- fluence. Scipio de Ricci, from whose memoirs the subsequent de- scription of Nunneries is compiled, has also unfolded the unchangeable turpitude and stupendous artifices which now characterize the infernal policy of the Roman Pontiffs and their court of Cardinals. This part of the volume is of equal importance to us, as his developments concerning Monks and Nuns. By the most undeniable historical details, and by other authentic documents, pontifical bulls, decretals, and canons, the fact is incontestable, that the Popes ever have claimed, as Gregory XVI. the reigning " Man of Sin," does now arrogate to wield the destinies of all mankind, upon penalty of the greater excommunication for rejection of his iniquitous au- thority, or disobedience to his accursed mandates. The dis- cussions concerning the Bull " In Ccena Domini," and the Decretals, are invaluable expositions of the inflexible spirit which guides and determines all the measures that are adopted INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. IX by the Roman hierarchy. They testify beyond all cavil, that the dissemination of Popish principles, and the fearful increase of Romanists in this country, endanger the whole frame of civil society ; and threaten, unless their progress be efficiently arrested, to subvert the whole fabric of the rights of con- science, and the government and constitution of the United States. European history, and the annals of Canada, Mexico, and South America, attest, that Popery in power, and true freedom as it is understood in this republic, cannot possibly exist together. The present volume renders that state- ment morally certain. Our grand design by this publication, however, was this ; to unfold the principles, character, and doings of Female Convents. It may probably be objected, that some of the disclosures which the Roman Prelate has made, are so disgusting that they ought not to have been re- printed. In ordinary cases the plea would be admissible — but in reference to Popery it is invalid. A destructive incredulity exists respecting the horrible impurity and deadly practices of Nuns, who are cloaked under various bewitching appellatives, and decorated in meretricious garbs expressly to ensnare and seduce our citizens. That mischievous fascination, it is essen- tial to the public welfare, as well as to the security of the Christian Churches, to unravel and expose in lucid display. Leopold, Prince of Tuscany, merits the gratitude of the whole civilized world, for his attempts to exterminate the Convents in his dominions ; and Scipio de Ricci, the Roman Prelate who endeavored to cleanse those " holds of every foul spirit," indescribably more filthy than even the fabulous Augean sta- ble, "being dead, yet speaketh." After due consultation with the most competent judges, and some of the prominent champions of evangelical truth, in the present " war upon the Beast ;" it was resolved, that the revolting discoveries which the Bishop of Pistoia and Prato made, should be presented to the public unmutilated ; with anxious solicitude that the hide- ous pictures of Nuns and Nunneries which he has delineated, might tend to the exclusion of that part of "the mystery ot iniquity," from this nominally Christian republic. What, therefore, are the principal instructions which we derive from the researches that Scipio de Ricci made into the secrets of the Italian Female Convents 1 and what arguments X INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. can be adduced against the continuance and extension of the monastic system in the United States 1 It is irrelevant now to review the origin and progress of monachism ; nor is it of any importance to inquire into the supposititious benefits and certain injuries, which in former generations Monasteries and Nunneries are alleged to have produced. Our investigation applies to the present period, and to our own country ; and in this aspect, it may justly be propounded for consideration, whether it be not the incumbent duty of the legislatures of the different States to prohibit those institutions by law 1 ? The perusal of the ensuing pages fully sanctions four general propositions, either of which is amply sufficient to justify the utmost repugnance to Popery, which Christianity inculcates ; and all of which combined evidently demand, that every good citizen should strive by all legitimate methods, to stop this enemy which cometh in like a flood ; and that every sincere Christian should lift up the standard of the spirit of the Lord against him. I. Nunneries and the conventual mode of life, are altogether contradictory to the Divine appointments respecting the order of nature, and the constitution of mankind and human society. That declaration of Jehovah, which constitutes the founda- tion of all human existence, and especially of all our domestic ties and endearments, is coeval with the creation of mankind ; " It is not good that the man should be alone." In his allwise benevolence, the Lord of life made " a help meet for him." The law of Paradise is corroborated by the express mandate of Christianity ; 1 Corinthians, vii. 2. ; " let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." This appointment of God, and this recommendation of the gospel, are both founded, we are assured, upon the same prin- ciple, and are proposed for the identical result ; " to avoid fornication." In all cases whatever, to violate these laws of creation and providence which are manifestly written upon man and his terrestrial existence, endangers our safety, either in its phy- sical, mental, or moral relations. That the monastic system destroys life, entombs the intellect, and engenders inordinate INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XI corruption of the most direful species, is a fact too notorious now to require proof. " The monastic life is unnatural, for it is in direct opposition to an original principle of the human mind, by which our species are connected among themselves, the desire of society; and the professed and primary object of monastic institutions is preposterous, because their existence is one continuous crime against God, and against human society, increasing every hour in magnitude and atrocity." " Go, teach the drone of ghostly haunts, That wastes in indolence his time, Though superstitious hymns he chants, His life is one continued crime." The monastic system, if universally adopted, would be general suicide. Not merely is the practice opposed because it is unnatural, but because it is unjust and ruinous. Respect- ing investigations that combine the very existence of man- kind, we have no concern with individual exceptions, and especially in cases where no evidence can be proffered to sus- tain the alleged singularity ; and in truth, where no proof can be valid against the original appointment of God, and the essential constitution of mankind. To all arguments which are based upon the exemplary purity of the voluntary celibate life of men, and the unavoidably coerced unmarried state of many lovely and refined women, there is the Divine retort, " it is not good that the man should be alone." There is uni- versal testimony arising from the constant experience of the human family, that a life of celibacy is a course of unceas- ing impurity ; and there are historical records which verify that the system of monachism is directly at war with all the benevolent designs of God, and with all the essential inter- ests of mankind. The original constitution of human relations, as appointed by God, also determines that a life of celibacy is a course of injustice. No man either has a right to live unmarried, or can be justified for his palpable infringement of the Divine law ; and consequently, there is a prior argument of Divine authority against the contrivance of Monks and Nuns which no negative evidence can possibly invalidate. The two chief INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, points upon which reliance is placed as exoneration of the Roman Priesthood, and their cloistered sisters, from the charge of sensuality, are most perversely alleged. One is, their se- clusion from the world and its temptations ; and the other is, their abstinence, fasting and macerations. Although it could be evinced, that both those principles were fully carried out, and in their most extensive operation ; nevertheless, the fact would not be demonstrated, that the monastic system could control that attraction between the sexes, which like the other animal instincts, is indispensable to the preservation of human life. But the reverse is the fact. In all ordinary cases, no persons live more luxuriously than the Papal Ecclesiastics, both male and female : and their severance from the world and its fascinations is more nominal than real. That the abodes of Monks and Nuns are perfectly unnatural ; and as the unavoidable tendency, that they are the prolific sources of the most horrid uncleanness, the ensuing pages awfully prove. Without a constant miracle, they could not be otherwise. The attachment of the sexes towards each other, is indispensable and universal ; without it the race of man in one generation would be extinct. The monastic system viti- ates all the social affections, and incarcerates man in a cage of selfishness, and circumscribes all his affections within the restricted limit of his own personal gratifications. Were that unholy device to attain any extension and protracted supre- macy, the moral hemisphere would speedily be subverted, and the Gospel of Christ, which is totally opposed to all the monk- ish infatuation, would again disappear in the more than Egyp- tian darkness that would overspread the world. The monastic system necessarily demands, that they who adopt it, should be persons deprived of every capacity for general usefulness, and also be men and women destitute of all the usual sensi- bilities of humanity. Whatever the inmates of convents may have been individually ; whether an occasional Friar may have been gifted with continency, or whether some Nun or novi- ciate, under almost unparalleled circumstances, may have re- sisted the evils of the confessor, and the seductive influence of the licentious examples continually around her, is of no im- portance in deciding this question. This result could not uniformly follow, without the immediate direct interposition INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Xlll of the " Lord of all." A miraculous intervention of the most extraordinary character, and in comparison with which all the stupendous works of Jesus, the " Son of God," are profoundly eclipsed, must ever be directed in the choice, im- pulse, and restraint of a few individuals, contrary to the ex- press universal and immutable appointments of God at crea- tion, and the divinely constituted arrangements which he has made for the increase and preservation of mankind, and the blessing of the Church and the world. II. The monastic system is opposed to personal piety, know- ledge, purity, and usefulness, and invariably tends to debase its victims in ignorance, sensuality, crime and anguish. It would not be practicable to present a more lucid view of the character of Nunneries, than in the picture drawn of them by Mackray, in his Essay on the effect of the reformation upon civil society. Every feature of the hideous and appalling view is graphically correct, as proved by the more recent de- lineations of Scipio de Ricci. Appendix A. It would be superfluous to attempt an elaborate proof of the proposition, that evangelical piety is incompatible with monastic life. What might be the effect of the system under any possible modifications, it is irrelevant to inquire. Un- varying testimony assures us that " pure religion and unde- fined," has never yet been exemplified in claustral life. Gloomy superstitious forms, and sanctimonious mummery have been practised with apparent austerity ; but communion with God, love of the brethren, practical piety, and Christian holiness, are profound strangers to the monastic system. In truth, the celibate life, which is its primary and cardinal ingredient, extirpates all that is pure and good. Of this fact, the two English Universities are a remarkable demonstration. In those splendid endowments, it is required that the " fellows," as they are called of the Colleges, shall be unmarried men. The consequence is this, that probably Oxford and Cambridge embody more notorious and inordinate dissoluteness, than any other towns in Britain. This is the legitimate result of re- taining, as is still done in England, so large a portion of the antiquated usages and popish corruptions of the dark ages. The boasts which are so often made of the learning of an- terior generations under the papal supremacy; and thelamen- 2 XIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. tations that have been offered over the supposed literary losses to the world, by the demolition of the monasteries, are merely idle affectation. The author already quoted has supplied us with an illustration upon this topic not less instructive than convincing. Appendix B. Of all the drones who ever infested the world, none surpass in perfect uselessness, and its inseparable attendants, vice and misery, the inhabitants of convents. Indolence is their best characteristic. Incarcerated in a gloomy mansion, with no duties to fulfil, no motives to activity, no sympathy or re- lationship for the exterior world, and no anxiety for its im- provement, or feeling for its desolations, of what value are those excrescences upon society] " In shirt of hair, and weeds of canvass dress'd, Girt with a bell-rope that the Pope has bless'd ; Wearing out life in his pernicious whim, Till his mischievous whimsy wears out him." No man has a right to absolve himself from all the duties which he owes to the world. No woman can be justified for abandoning all the obligations which she owes to society. No Christian, therefore, possibly can be a Friar or a Nun. III. Monachism directly counteracts the progress of intelli- gence, civil and religious freedom, commercial prosperity, and national improvement. It is the peculiar property of Ro- manism to defile and curse every thing with which it comes into contact : and if there be any part of that " working of Satan," called Popery, which possesses more deleterious qualities than the rest of "the mystery of iniquity," it is the monastic sys- tem. An irresistible argument might be framed from the spirit of monkish institutions, which would demonstrate that they must deteriorate the human character, and obstruct all the stable interests of the body politic. Every incentive to progress under its mischievous influence is extirpated. In former ages, when the edifices devoted to Friars and Nuns were found in every district of the European nations, what was their character, and what was the result of their establish- ment ? Universal barbarism, penury, wretchedness, and crime. All the annals of the thousand years prior to the Re- formation, bear the same decisive and unequivocal testimony INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XV to the benighted, and impoverished, and degraded condition of the then existing people. Could it possibly be otherwise 1 All the impulses to enterprise and personal and social eleva- tion, under the government of the Papacy, and especially within the cloistered battlements, are utterly unknown. Any other knowledge than that which can be made subservient to priestly aggrandizement, is pronounced accursed ; and subjects the possessor of it to imprisonment, torture, and death. Pro- bably the dark dungeons of Popery scarcely unfold a more demonstrative proof, that hostility to science was not the error of one age, but that it is the crime of the Papal system, than the history of Galileo. His experience is undeniable evidence that an inveterate and perpetual warfare is waged by the Pon- tifical Court, not against pure religion only, but also against true philosophy and the noblest science. " Galileo had become a convert to the Copernican astrono- my ; and, by a succession of most splendid discoveries, had demonstrated the motion of the earth around the sun. The ignorant Pope and besotted Cardinals, and the ferocious Inqui- sitors, accused that dignified philosopher and the greatest scientific scholar of his age, of the crime of heresy ; and Gali- leo was cast into a dungeon of the Inquisition. His sublime knowledge was condemned by priestly bigots, all whose intelli- gence was restricted to the most voluptuous mode of gratify- ing their inordinate sensual appetites, and who were too grovelling and carnal minded to comprehend his lofty specula- tions and etherial soarings ; and to that superlative astronomer was presented the alternative, either to deny self-evident mathematical propositions, or to be burnt as a heretic. At seventy years of age, on his knees, and with his hand on the Gospels, he condemned, abjured and cursed his own infallible opinions, and swore before the infamous Inquisitors, that he would never more hold or assert in word or writing the doc- trines which he had demonstrated, that the sun is the center of the solar system, and that the earth moves. From that day he never afterwards cither wrote or talked upon the subject of astronomy." What is the Index Expurgatorius, but a pontifical law, which dooms the whole dominions over which the Pope's jurisdiction extends to Egyptian darkness ? All books, in every f XVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. department of literature, theological, scientific, historical, and upon the ornamental arts, unless they directly or indirectly aid the despotic claims of the Roman Court, are condemned to be burnt. The catalogue begins with the Holy Bible, and includes almost every genuine book which is truly worthy of perusal, either ancient or modern. That prohibition of books is most sedulously complied with in all convents ; and the explorations of Scipio de Ricci among the monasteries and priesthood of Tuscany, convince us that the boasted literary lore of Jesuit seminaries, and Ursuline convents, must necessarily be an im- posture ; because all the means of their attaining knowledge are most sedulously and authoritatively, by the Pope and his prelates, and equally by the voluntary design of the monastics, totally excluded. Popery decrees that " ignorance is the mother of devotion ;" and, of course, of every good quality — but Protestantism pro- claims, that " knowledge is power." The monastic system is destructive of illumination, and consequently of liberty. Des- potism, of the most abhorrent attributes, is both the very main- spring and aliment of conventual life. It gilds the cross which surmounts the principal turret, — it is the steam-pump by which, at auricular confession, every secret of the heart is evolved, and it is the iron key which locks up in impenetrable darkness the doleful mysteries of those dungeons of despair. The tyranny of the convent extends to every spiritual emotion, as well as to the language, features, demeanor and conduct ; and they must be moulded according to the imperious dictates of the superior and the chaplain. All this is irreconcilable with freedom ; and it is an indis- putable fact, that girls and boys, in this country, who have been trained up in a convent or monastery, unless the grace of God very powerfully operates upon them, exemplify the prominent features of the monastic system. Many persons now well known in society, exhibit such extraordinary varie- ties, that their companions realize great difficulty in attempt- ing to unravel their complex characters. They are blustering and servile — apparently candid, and yet profoundly deceitful — they mingle the fawning of a parasite with the stubbornness of a .Tiule — and can assume so many forms, that no man can place any reliance scarcely upon their personal identity. It is INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XV11 the natural effect of a monastic education. They were in the basest bondage, and cannot shake off its habits ; they are in freedom, and know not how to improve it. That system which thus necessarily despoils citizens of their best qualities, ought to be execrated : for it is evident, that if extended so as to predominate throughout our country, all genuine freedom would be extinct. The superiority of Protestantism to Popery, in reference to mercantile enterprise, is so palpable that it requires neither illustration nor proofs. The wisdom of divine Providence is remarkably illustrated in the close connection which, in point of time, exists between the three grand events which have been the instruments, in the dispensations of the merciful Jehovah, in some measure to renovate the world : and the order of their occurrence was not less admirably planned, than the stupen- dous results which have flowed from them. The art of print- ing rendered universal the principles of nautical science ; the discovery of Columbus opened a way for adventurous spirits to realize the dignity of emancipation from the Pontifical shackles, by a removal where the thunders of the Vatican did not reverberate; and Luther, Zuingle, Calvin, Knox and Cranmer, broke to atoms the extinguishers which had so long concealed the true light, and liberated man soon commenced to traverse all latitudes and longitudes in search of knowledge and in quest of opulence. The contrast only between Protes- tant and Papal countries during the last 250 years, discloses a testimony against convents, which it is impossible to gainsay. Monks and Nuns in no form participate in the active duties which cultivate those products that are wafted into all lands, and from which, in return, the comforts and luxuries of life are obtained. Hence it follows, that the indolent life of Monks and Nuns is a barrier to all national improvement. The existing deplorable state of Tuscany, as portrayed in the ensuing pages, was, three hundred years ago, the state of all Europe. The swarms of Friars, and their cloistered paramours, consumed the vitals of every land. Their example encouraged sloth among all orders of the people. Poverty, wretchedness, debasement, and pillage characterized the whole community. It was either a gorgeous display of barbaric magnificence, by the feudal lord of the district, or the most appalling dependence 2* XVUl INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. and necessity. The history of every country which has ever been cursed by the Papal predominance, and especially the present condition of those who have been emancipated from its thraldom, when contrasted with their anterior state, veri- fies, that, to indulge any expectation of general benefit from the monastic system and from the predominance of Popery, ia just as wise as to attempt to " gather figs from thistles, and grapes from thorns." IV. The monastic system nullifies all the requirements of the Christian religion. Its duties are prohibited, its consola- tions intercepted, and by the operation of monachism, the exertions of gospel philanthropy are abrogated, and the uni- versal diffusion of the Kingdom of God, which is righteous- ness, and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, is totally impeded. It may probably be objected to this allegation, that the Monks of former ages were the persons by whom the Roman Court enlarged the pontifical sway. The fact is admitted, and it redounds still more to the disgrace of Popery and the Friars, that instead of propagating'the glorious Gospel, they only sub- stituted their own more refined idolatry and superstitions for the offensive abominations of Paganism. But transfer men and women to the cells of the convent, its sloth and secrecy, its constant mummeries and restless anxieties for freedom and enjoyment, its insatiable longir.gs, and its constant iden- tity of voluptuous and unsatisfying indulgence : and would you look for evangelical missionaries in those dens of igno- rance, sloth, and corruption ? All the monasteries on earth could not produce a Brainerd, a Swartz, a Vanderkemp, or a Martyn, with the rest of the glorified servants of Christ, exclusive of the living laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Neither idiotism nor lunacy would dream of going into a convent to procure the counterparts of Anne Chater, Harriet Newell, Anne Judson, and the other intrepid and devoted women, who will live in everlasting re- membrance when the monastic system, with " the beast and the false prophet, shall be consumed in the lake of fire, burn- ing with brimstone." When the monkish system commenced, it was merely a flight into the desert, and a temporary abode in solitude, until the infernal storm of malignant persecution had dissipated its INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XIX fury. The crafty " Man of Sin " speedily perceived, that the monastic life and vows might easily be transformed into an irresistible machine to support his usurped despotism. Erro- neous opinions respecting the superior sanctity of the celibate life, and infatuated whims concerning the refining spirituality of years devoted to contemplation, enlarged the number of Monks ; until their independence of the Prelates permitted them to pass their time in one continuous scene of sensual indulgence. Notwithstanding all the indescribable corruption which characterized the Convents of Friars, and the Nun- neries, they maintained their ascendancy over the benighted and superstitious multitude. When we remember the pro- found ignorance, even of all the residents in the monastic edifices, we cannot feel surprise, although we must abhor their delusions and iniquity, that persons who were given over to "strong delusion," and who commingled all that was good on earth with the Pope's passport to heaven, should have yielded themselves to the support of a pretended, imposing, gaudy ceremonial, which allows every vicious indulgence for money, and which guaranteed an admission into Paradise to all who can purchase the title, sealed by the Pontiff of Rome. But the monastic system in modern times, and especially in the United States, in its essentially deceptive character, appears masked under the name and in the garb of literary institutions. In all those parts of Europe where the astound- ing wickedness of the male and female convents was divulged, it was impossible to protract their duration ; their inexpressi- bly flagrant dissoluteness rendered it absolutely impracticable, either to extenuate their turpitude, or prolong their existence. But as the number of persons devoted to celibacy, severed from the world, and in inalienable alliance with the Pope, is of vast solicitude to the Roman Court, the Pontiffs of the sixteenth century permitted the priests and their sisters, whose crimes were so odious that he dared not pardon them, and yet whose ungodly services were so valuable, that he could not dispense with them, to imborly themselves under a new and unsuspi- cious title. Thus many of the unprincipled mendicant Friars became Jesuits, and the most wicked Nuns were embodied under the name of Saint Ursula. The two orders are brother and sister. They are governed by the same principles — . xx INRTRODICTORY ESSAY. ostensibly pursue the same object— the education of youth. Always, however, professing great solicitude to teach Protest- ant children, but exhibiting no regard for the benighted and perishing souls of the Papists ; and they have ever exempli- fied an artifice which certifies, that with " cunning craftiness they lie in wait to deceive." But the grand inquiry is this— Are the spirit, principles, and practices of the monastic orders changed in modern times ? The answer may be found in the following portraiture of Tus- can convents. It is the perennial boast of all Romanists, both ecclesiastical and their disciples, that Popery is identical, and what it ever was, it is now, and always will be. This fact all history certifies ; consequently, Popery in the United States, in the nineteenth century, is the same as it was in Britain three hundred years since. But the Monks and Nuns are the staff of the Roman Court; and therefore, under what- ever vizors concealed, or by whatever name disguised, they are now the counterparts of their ancient atrocious predeces- sors. The monastic system comprises a total paralysis of all Christian good, in devotion, zeal and morals ; and substitutes childish superstitions, with the most debasing sloth and vice. But probably the worst effect of conventual institutions is the profoundly artificial character which they invariably pro- duce and nurture. Jesuitical dissimulation is an inseparable associate of the monkish life. Deception fills the unholy edi- fice from the foundation to the capstone ; it is the air which Monks and Nuns breathe, and the highly seasoned sauce which gives a relish to all their food, and by the operation of which their other privations are rendered tolerable. The ensuing details of the researches made by Scipio de Ricci demonstrate the truth of an inference, which in its application is most startling, that an inmate of a monastery or nunnery cannot retain the predominance of Christian principles and integrity. With the very few exceptions of those who have since be- come the subjects of redeeming grace, it is undeniable, that nearly all the young men in our country who have been trained up in the Jesuit Colleges, are either avowed or secret infidels, and not less licentious in practice than irreligious in princi- ple. There is not an instance to be found, unless those in- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXI eluded in that exception, even among the women, which is not conformable to the above statement. Every girl who has been educated in an American nunnery has departed from it — either a determined sceptic, or a hardened opponent of all religion, or a disguised and dispensed Papist ; and assuredly with every refined feminine sensibility destroyed, and most probably deeply versed in all those artifices that she has learned from the Jesuit confessor, by which she can deceive every person, and elude all discovery of her genuine character and secret dissi- pation. The hypocrisy which is stamped upon all the Jesuit Con- vents, whether superintended by Roman Priests or their Ursu- line sisters, is so undisguised, that it is astonishing our citizens do not indignantly repel the daring imposture. Those wily craftsmen, and their priestesses, proclaim that their sole object is to educate youth in a superior manner; and they boast of their extraordinary qualifications for that object. But the solemn inquiries may be propounded — why are those Priests and Nuns so anxious to teach Protestant children only 1 Why will they not receive them after they have passed the years of mere juvenility ? Why do they maintain all the strictest regulations of the ancient orders, whose very crimes were produced and perpetuated by the operation of those rules and customs 1 To these questions should be added the conside- ration, that Protestants have erected a system of education in almost all parts of our republic ; and although in many re- spects imperfect, yet the elementary principles of knowledge can every where be obtained ; while in many of our colleges, a course of literature is studied co-extensive with the acquire- ments of any similar foreign institution, and as far superior to all that any Jesuit seminary imparts, as the difference be- tween the oratory of George Whitefield, and the song of a Roman Priest, chanting a mass for a soul in purgatory. Pro- testant female institutions also are dispersed throughout our country, between which, for the purpose of literary tuition, and especially in point of Christian morals, and the nunneries established by the sister Jesuits, there is no more likeness than there is similitude between Hannah More, and the su- perior of the Ursulinc community at Charlestown. Now it is certain, that a very large and disproportionate XXH INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. mass of ignorance, and its consequent immorality and debase- ment, is found among the Papists. Very few of them, com- paratively, can read or write ; and it is still more deplorable, although consistently mischievous, that the Roman Priests will not permit the popish youth to attend the schools of the " cursed heretics," as they denominate the Protestants. Why, therefore, if they are so extremely benevolent and phi- lanthropic as they profess, do not the Jesuits and the Ursu- lines dedicate their labor to the melioration of the moral cha- racter, and the improvement of the mental condition of the hundred thousand children of their own society, who are growing up to maturity, groping in darkness, and untamed as a wild ass's colt ] The only answer to this question is this — that the sole object of all the monastic institutions in America, is merely to proselyte youth of the influential classes in society, and especially females ; as the Roman Priests are conscious that by this means they shall silently but effectually attain the control of public affairs. No girl long attends auricular con- fession, either to the superior of the Nunnery or the Chaplain, before she is lost. Her will is subdued. She has surrendered herself to the control and implicit direction of two unspeaka- bly artful profligates, who have her reputation entirely at their disposal — and the declaration of Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of the convent at Pistoia, page 92, of this volume, may be in- fallibly affirmed of every one of them. The confessors " de- ceive the innocent, and even those that aremost circumspect ; and it would need a miracle to converse with them and not to fall!" With this knowledge of Monks and Nuns, and the official testimony of a prince and prelate, both subject to the Roman court, as narrated in this work, the appeal must solemnly be made to all Protestants — Can you justify before God and your country, your patronage of monastic institutions 1 Do you not endanger the virtue and usefulness of your children in this world, and also jeopard their everlasting welfare, by transferring your sons, and especially your daughters, to the management of Jesuit Priests and Qrsuline Nuns? From their primary organization about three hundred years ago, when they embodied the very refuse of the ancient orders, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXU1 whose habitually nefarious course, the Papacy itself, which emphatically lieth in wickedness, would no longer tolerate ; those Roman ecclesiastics, the Jesuits, and their Ursuline sisters, have been uniformly the most loathsome examples of unnatural licentiousness, whose vitiosity is recorded in the annals of mankind. To all such blinded or deluded Protestant parents, may aptly be applied the pungent mandate and expostulation, 2 Corinthians, vi. 14 — 18. " Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers : for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ?" Therefore, hear the voice from heaven, which says, " Come out of Babylon, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." The ensuing portraiture of Jesuit monasteries, and the Roman priesthood, and the pontifical hierarchy, and of female convents and nuns, is recommended to all those who are anx- ious to comprehend the genuine character and the uniform and universal practices of those institutions. Here are no high-wrought romantic fictions, no eloquent imaginative tales worked up for effect, and naught "set down in malice," byinimi- cal Protestants. The ensuing pages comprise grave and una- dorned testimony, furnished by a Popish prelate and his breth- ren, acting officially by the authority of a prince, subordinate to the Roman court ; and narratives prepared by the nuns themselves ; consequently, as the evidence cannot be impugn- ed, the description of ancient Judah and Jerusalem, by the prophet, may be correctly applied to the entire monastic sys- tem. Isaiah, i. 4, 5, 6. " Ah ! people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters ! From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores." From this pestilential curse, may the God of mercy deliver our republic, and tlio American Churches ! New York, 10th October, 1834. SECRETS OF FEMALE CONVENTS DISCLOSED. CHAPTER I. Scipio dc Ricci studies among the Jesuits. — His Renunciation of the Principles of that Society. — His Ordination as Priest. — He inherits the Property of the last General of the Jesuits.— Suppression of the Order, anil Confinement of the Ex-General at Rome. — Death of Pope GranganellL — Narrative proving that Pope to have hcen poisoned. Scipio de Ricci was born in Florence on the 9th of January, 1741. He was the third son of the senator president, Peter Francis de Ricci, and of Maria Louisa, daughter of Bettina Ricasoli, baron of La Trappola, and captain of the Swiss guard in the service of the Duke of Tuscany. His family, one of the most ancient and distinguish- ed in Tuscany, was not at that time in favor with the House of Lorraine, who had been but recently seated on the Grand Ducal throne. His grandfather had professed republican principles, and his uncle had taken the side of the Bourbons against the House of Austria. Tiny were too proud to seek for court favor under these circumstances, and looked for preferment to other quarters. Young Ricci, who had lost his father, was therefore sent by his uncles to Rome, at the age of fifteen ; and, in spite of the protestations of his mother, and of the priest who had hitherto directed his studies, a man in his principles of religion 3 86 SECRETS OF and morality strongly opposed to Jesuitism, he was put under the care of the Jesuits. Catholic Europe was at that time occupied with the quarrels of that too famous body. Its insatiable ambi- tion, its immense riches, its terrifying power, the infor- mation diffused among its members, the great men of all kinds which it had produced and was every day producing, its doctrines subversive of the independence of governments and the morality of the people, — all these characteristics had divided the Roman com- munion into obstinate partisans of its system and its existence, already attacked on all sides, and into adversaries who thought only of its destruction. Scipio de Ricci had been bred in the very bosom of the order and by its members, and he had been initiated in their maxims, of which he knew the very smallest details ; but he was surrounded on the other side by the many antagonists which it had raised even in the metropolis of Catholicism. It was not long before he ranged himself among the most zealous and enlightened of those who hastened, with all their efforts and all their wishes, to promote the dissolution of this formidable society ; and who never ceased to pursue its remains, and mark out its spirit, as often as they thought there was any danger of a revival of the evil which it had caused to the great Christian community. Ricci was superstitious. While he was among the Jesuits, a tumor, which resisted all the remedies of art, appeared upon his knee. An amputation was decided upon ; when, as he informs us, he applied with fervor and constancy to the diseased part an image, representing the venerable Hyppolito Galantina, one of the brothers, called Bachettoni, and he was completely cured. Strange contradiction in the human mind ! that such ideas should co-exist in the same head with the rational, true, and solid principles, which made Ricci afterwards, to a certain extent, a religious reformer, a wise citizen, a zealous patriot, and a friend of the arts, literature, and humanity. In the house of the Canon Bottari, who was regard- FEMALE CONVENTS. 25 ed by the Jesuits as the chief of those who were accused of Jansenism, this miracle took place. The Canon made his own use of it ; and his conversation and that of the persons who frequented his house, eured Ricci of the ideas he had formed concerning the sanctity and doctrine, which he confesses up to that time he had allowed in the highest degree, and almost exclusively to the Jesuits. What he learned among these fathers did not tend less to prepare him for the aversion he was doomed to ieel for them hereafter, than what he had heard from their adversaries. The Irish Jesuit who was charged with teaching him the precious art of reason- ing, taught him nothing but a sophistical and captious logic— the sole end of which was "among a thousand useless questions and logomachies without number, to take for granted in all their extent, and in all the clear- ness of which they were susceptible, the fundamental principles of molinism and congruism, by means of the ideas of the medial science ; that is, of the means by which God sees conditional futures" It would be useless to explain this jargon. In the middle of his course he took a fancy to become a Jesuit, and consulted his family on the subject. He embraced the idea in order to prepare himself for a place in the other world, believing that this had been promised in a pro- phecy of Francis Borgia, to all members of the Society of Jesus. " A man," says he, " desirous of his eternal welfare would not neglect a passport of this nature ; and I had not the information necessary to perceive the vanity and nullity of such a pledge." The answer of his relatives was an order to return immediately to Florence. His mother had no partiality for the Jesuits ; and his uncles, whose ambition it was that bo should rise to the highest dignities of the church, neglected nothing to hinder him from burying himself ; with such hopes, in the den of a cloister. Scarcely had Ricci returned into Tuscany, in 1758, before he forgot his vocation, and thought of nothing 28 SECRETS OF but concluding his studies at the university of Pisa, to which lie was sent. He pursued a course of theology at Florence, under the Benedictines of Mount Cassino, among whom P. Buonamici was at that time lecturer. He then became a Jansenist, or rather Augustinian. The sectaries of that name frequently join to their speculative and indifferent dogmas, the active and very important quality of being what is called legalists — that is, they make of religion what it really is, a matter of con- science, and leave the care of government to those who are charged with it. August in did not preach this doctrine any more than the other Christian writers of his time, who could not even doubt the horrible abuses which must in the course of ages arise from the infer- nal confusion of the temporal with the spiritual power. But the Jesuits had made themselves decretalists, that is to say, they were the apostles of these abuses ; and the Jansenists were obliged to combat these errors not only with the body which sustained them, but with the Popes, for whose particular advantage they were calculated. It was only gradually that these sectaries came to the degree of hardihood requisite openly to affront the prejudices so solidly established on the superstitious habits of the one party, and the inter- ested ambition of the other. Ricci, who in the course of his life ran round the whole circle of Jansenism, complains of it in these terms : " In the course of theology, the doctrine of Augustin was maintained with the greatest vigor ; but the respect which they still had for certain decretals, and the fear of offending the Court of Rome, did not permit the Benedictines to say all that perhaps they thought, but which circum- stances compelled them to keep silent.'' Ricci was ordained priest in 1766, and appointed almost immediately canon and auditor to the nuncia- ture of Tuscany. In 1772, he inherited the property of Corso de Ricci, canon-penitentiary of the cathedral at Florence, a FEMALE CONVENTS. 29 relative of his father ; and though the brother of the last General of the Jesuits, he was very much opposed to the morality which they taught. This circumstance brought Ricci in contact with the General of the Jesuits. After the suppression of the society, the General begged from him an asylum in his hotel at Florence, or in one of his country houses in Tuscany, for himself and a lay-brother. Ricci went to Poggio-Imperiale, to communicate the request to the Grand Duke Leopold, who said at once, "Let him come; it is of no consequence to me whether he sojourns in my States or elsewhere ; bait," added he laughing, " I don't think they will let him go." This answer he communicated to his relation, but the General was not allowed to take advantage of it. He was at first confined in the English college, under the care of Cardinal Andrew Corsini, and of Signor Foggini ; but the congregation of Cardinals transferred him to the Castle of Angelo, where he underwent many examinations, and where without leaving it, he died. The death of the Pope who had suppressed the order, had preceded his. Ricci adds his testimony, that he was poisoned. Among his papers was found the following curious and interesting document. " Narrative describing- the last illness and death of Pope Clement XIV.. sent by the SpanisJi Minister to his Court "In 1770. a country girl of Valentino, whose name was Bernadine Beruzzi, first began to spread her pre- dictions respecting the Jesuits. There were a great number of other prophecies afloat, by means of which that society endeavored to rouse the superstition of the multitude for the evident purpose of restraining Clement XIV. from issuing the fatal decree of suppression. This Bernadine became notorious by her impostures. She predicted that the Society would not be extin- guished ; that one of its most celebrated members would be raised to the purple by Clement XIV. him- 30 SECRETS OF self ; that the Jesuits would in a short time be restored to the states from which they had been expelled ; that the Pope would undergo a total change of sentiments towards them ; with a variety of other falsities. On the 24th of March this deluded prophetess announced the death of Clement XIV., and persisted in repeating the false intelligence, until after being convinced that he was still alive, she returned to her predictions respecting the honors and favors prepared for the Jesuits. After the suppression of the society in August 1773, the prophecies still went on, in an altered tone; that the society would be re-established ; and that the Pope and all those who had assisted him would die. Various punishments were denounced against them. The real propagators of these predictions were some Jesuits who systematically employed themselves in that object : applied ut fiat systema is a phrase used in a letter by these fanatics. " Notwithstanding these rumors, the Pope lived in health and quiet more than eight months after the society had been abolished, though he always sus- pected the intrigues of the Jesuits, and mentioned his apprehensions. He resigned himself to the care of the Almighty, to whom he willingly offered himself a sacrifice, since, in suppressing the Jesuits, he had done what appeared to him absolutely necessary and just, after numerous and fervent prayers addressed to Heaven. " The Pope was of a robust habit ; his voice was strong and sonorous ; he walked with the agility of a young man ; his disposition was gay, and he carried his affability so far, that some persons considered him too familiar. His penetration was so quick, that a single word was sufficient to make him perceive the object and the end of a discourse addressed to him ; he enjoyed a good appetite, and slept regularly every night. One day in the Holy Week of the year 1774, at the conclusion of dinner, Clement XTV. felt, a great uneasiness of the cbest, stomach, and intestines, ac- companied with a chill. The first evil symptom FEMALE CONVENTS. 31 which showed itself was a weakness of voice, indicat- ing some extraordinary kind of catarrh; in consequence of which it was resolved, that during divine service on Easter Day, the Pope's seat should be guarded against the cold air. Everybody present observed the change in his voice. An inflammation of the mouth and throat soon succeeded, and gave him a great deal of pain, obliging him to keep his mouth almost always open. Then followed vomitings at intervals, with excessive pains in the bowels, renal obstruction, and a gradual weakness in the body and legs ; so that he lost his sleep, and with it his alacrity in walking. He concealed these indications, though there is no doubt that he had resorted to the use of antidotes to the poison which he was persuaded had been adminis- tered to him. The Pope continued in this state during the months of May, June, and July, concealing the decay of his strength and his other symptoms, whilst a rumor was gaining ground that he could not long survive. Some persons went so far as to appoint the 16th of July as the day of his death ; and after that time had passed over, October was fixed upon, in conformity with letters from Germany and other parts. " In July he began the use of medicinal waters, which it was his annual custom to drink. Itwas remark- ed that this year his usual eruption, an acrid humor, did not come to his relief, in sufficient abundance, till the beginning of August ; and he continued the habit of holding his mouth open, suffering also from weak- ness and the sore throat, together with excessive perspira- tions. He gave audiences to the ministers towards the end of August, notwithstanding the pain and feeble- ness occasioned by his illness, which had deprived him of his natural cheerfulness and affability ; so that it required the united force of a cultivated understanding and apious temper, to moderate the pressure of his 1 bodily infirmities, and to restore his habitual urbanity. At this juncture a letter was received by the Secretary for tin; "Affairs of Jesuits," from the Vicar-general of Padua, informing him that some ex-jesuits had 32 SECRETS OF appeared before him, and had indulged in the most violent imprecations against the Pope, asserting that the month of September would terminate his existence. " An engraving was also published in Germany, exhibiting, on the left hand the figure of Death, with the likeness of Christ on a flag : on the right side was a staff, supporting a sort of tabernacle, in which was represented an ex-jesuit, dressed in the habili- ments of a secular priest. At the top were the letters IHS, and at the bottom, the inscription iSic finis erit ! Behold the end ! There were, besides, some German verses, declaring that although the Jesuits had been compelled to alter their dress, they never would change their opinions, and immediately afterwards, the following text from 1 Kings, xxxv. 18. — qVoD bonVM est, In oCVLIs sVIs faCIet. The letters printed in capitals, when joined together, give the number MDCCLVV Willi, 1774, the year in which Clement died. " A fever supervened to those symptoms. This happened on the evening of the J Oth September. It was accompanied by a sort of fainting, and an excess of debility, which seemed to threaten the speedy extinction of life. Ten ounces of blood were taken from him the same night, without any sign of inflam- mation ; nor did his breathing, his chest, nor his bowels, give any cause for alarm. The coagulation of the blood took place in a satisfactory manner, not- withstanding the declared opinion of his physician, that the complaint arose from a deficiency of serum, caused by the profuse perspirations he had undergone. He was free from fever on the morning of the 11th, and continued so during the whole day ; he had so much recovered on the 12th, that he took his usual walk on the 14th and 15th, and even thought himself equal to the fatigue of going to the Castel Gandolfo, where he seemed to enjoy the prospect of spending his time in the country, according to his custom at that season. "But on the 15th he relapsed into his former weak- FEMALE CONVENTS. 33 ness, to which was added a deep sleep, night and day, till the ISth, when he awoke for a few minutes. On the 19th it was perceived that he had fever, together with a swelling of the abdomen and retention of water. Some blood was taken from him, which, however, gave no sign of inflammation. Besides which, the bowels, when pressed, caused him no uneasiness, and his breathing and chest were perfectly unencumbered. An access of fever in the evening made it necessary to repeat the bleeding, and the same operation was renewed on the 20th, although the pulse had become softer, and the swelling had abated. But the inflam- mation returned in the evening, and the hope of his amendment had so far disappeared, as to make it appear proper to present him with the viaticum. " He passed a night of great agitation. On the 21st he was bled again. The fever, the swelling, and the retention still continued. At length the extreme unc- tion was administered to him that evening, and about half past seven o'clock, on the morning of the 22d September, 1774, he surrendered his soul into the hands of its Author. "About the same hour on the succeeding day, they proceeded to open and embalm the body, when the countenance was livid, the lips and nails were black, and the back had assumed a dark complexion. The abdomen was swelled, and the whole body emaciated, with a sort of cedar color approaching to the appear- and; of ashes, but which, nevertheless, allowed here and there to he seen some livid spots beneath the skin about the arms, the sides, and the lower extremities. " On dissection, it was discovered that inflammation and gangrene had commenced in the left lobe of the Lungs, adhering to the pleura; the opposite lobe was also inflamed. They were both loaded with blood ; and when the knife was put into them a sanguineous discharge took place. The pericardium was opened, and the heart was diminished in size by the total want of those humors which are found in that membrane. Beneath the diaphragm, (lie stomach and intestines 34 SECRETS OF were in the last stage of mortification. The oesophagus was inflamed throughout its whole interior, as far as the pylorus and the small intestines, with an evident tendency to gangrene, as well as the upper and lower divisions of the stomach ; and all these parts, as well as the intestines, were covered over with a fluid which the physicians call black bile. The liver was small, and in its upper portion contained some particles of serum ; the gall-bag was unusually distended, and was observed to contain a great quantity of atrabilious fluid; a large deposit of lymph had also taken place in the cavity of the belly; the dura mater was swelled, but presented no remarkable appearance in itself, except that of flaccidity. The intestines and viscera were placed in a vase, which burst open about an hour after sunset, filling the chamber with an insufferable stench, notwithstanding the embalming had only been finished a kw hours before. On the next morning, 24th Sep- tember, it was considered necessary to call in a physi- cian ; he found the smell unabated, the countenance swelled and discolored, and the hands quite black. On the back of the hands bladders had risen as high as two fingers, running across each other, and filled with lixivial matter, as if blistered with some boiling or ardent fluid. "Besides this, a great quantity of serous humor, mixed with clotted blood, trickled down the lower side of the bed, and spread profusely over the floor. This circumstance very much surprised the professional attendants, especially considering that life had not been extinct four-and-twenty hours, and that every precau- tion had been resorted to, by cleansing the body and removing the viscera, as well as by embalming. It was consequently proposed to enclose the body in a coffin, but the master of the house suggested that such a step was likely to have a bad effect upon the public mind, and prevailed upon them to be satisfied with such means as their art afforded. The pontifical habiliments, when removed, carried away with them a large portion of the skin and even of the cutis. The FEMALE CONVENTS. 35 thumb nail on the right hand was detached, and on trying the other, every person present was convinced that the slightest movement was sufficient to separate all the nails in succession. " In the dorsal region all the muscles were disunited and decomposed to such a degree, that towards the middle of the back and by the side of the spine, for the size of three fingers, there was found a large lump formed of the supercostal and intercostal muscles — on making two incisions the embalming was seen entire in the chest. "Except on the legs and thighs, a sort of breaking- out was observed all over the body. Various additional precautions were employed, and the incisions that were made caused a discharge of fluid which had the ap- pearance of bubbles. " It was also remarked, that a great part of the hair of the head had adhered to the pillow ; and, in short, notwithstanding the body was embalmed afresh, and every endeavor was made by the assistants, it was found absolutely necessary to enclose it, after its re- moval to St. Peter's, in spite of the suspicious caution with which the medical examiners expressed them- selves. Many of the circumstances here related were rumored throughout Rome ; and the people were shocked to the last degree, by the full persuasion that the Pope had been poisoned by means of the Acquetta, which is made in Calabria and Perugia, and which has the property of destroying life in the gradual manner I have described. "Intelligent persons compared together the various prophecies which had been set afloat. In addition to uliirh, we must bear in mind the false reports, the engravings, the threats, the internal commotion that seized Clement XIV., tin; inflammation of his throat ami mouth, the gradual decay of his strength, the chill, the swelling of the belly, the renal obstruction, the hoarseness, the vomitings, and. finally, the livid dis- coloration of the flesh and nails, the loss of their tena- city, and thai of Ins hair, the dry state of the heart, and SECRETS OF the other symptoms. After all these facts, it seems hardly conceivable that an inflammatory disorder, as the physicians named it, without some violent cause, should leave the blood without any indication of fever during nine successive days. Those persons thought themselves authorized in applying to the case of Cle- ment XIV. the distinguishing signs of poison, pointed out by Paul Zacchia, a celebrated Roman physician." CHAPTER II. Pius VI. elected Pope.— Ricci refuses to enter into the Prelacy.— Corres- pondence of Ricci with the last General of the Jesuits.— Trial of the ex-General, and his Protestations of Innocence.— Ricci appointed Vicar- General of the Archbishop of Florence.— Efforts of the Grand Duke Leopold for the diffusion of Knowledge, and the opposition of the See of Rome. Angelo Braschi ascended the pontifical throne upon the death of Ganganelli. He owed his fortune to the General of the Jesuits, who had obtained for him the situation of Treasurer of the Court of Rome, under the reign of Clement XIII. ; but he could not do any thing for the society, or its imprisoned chief. It is supposed that the Bourbon princes, before the dissolu- tion of the Conclave, obtained from him a promise to that effect. When it was discovered that he was on the eve of publishing a decree, by which he annulled all the acts and rescripts granted by the deceased Pon- tiff, on the ground that the weakness of his intellect afforded opportunities of abusing his signature, these courts took the precaution of having the Jive or six last months specified. By this means, they hindered the epoch of the Brief of Suppression from being com- prised in this measure, as might have been the case, if an indeterminate or too long a period had been named. Ricci went to Rome in 1 775, to attend to the rejoicing FEMALE CONVENTS. 37 consequent on the exaltation of the new Pope. His relation to the ex-general, the friendship of the Tuscan cardinal, Torrigiani, who was devoted to the Jesuits, his reputation for moderation and impartiality, which he had attained by his prudence in not taking any part in a quarrel then so important, caused him to be re- quested to enter into the prelacy. He resisted the temptation, giving these reasons for his disinclination : " I saw the danger of such a career, and having well examined the intrigues and cabals of the Court of Rome, I perceived that no where so much as there, is the possibility of continuing to be an honest man incompatible with the idea of what is called making one's fortune, and rising to elevated situations. If any one has succeeded there in preserving his honor, and remaining a Christian, after having entered into the career of the prelacy, he is the rara avis in terris. I made a resolution not even to think of it. So great a horror had I conceived for the tricks and dissimula- tion which I sail) openly practised in the prelacy, that I could not conceal from my friends the disgust which I felt, at seeing the vileness and the courtier-like adu- lations to which they were compelled to debase them- selves." This is said by a zealous Roman Catholic, and a prelate. Ricci, during his stay at Rome, applied for liberty to see his confined relative ; but in vain. In the course of the interview which he obtained with the Pope, Pius VI. could not conceal his chagrin at the ecclesi- astical reforms carrying on by the House of Austria, and by Leopold. He then referred the matter of his requesi to Cardinal Girai id, who refused the required permission. But, in spite of all their precautions, Rieci el] i dived to carry on a correspondence with the General, by means of a soldier named Serafini, who was his guard; and, through his agency, he received from his unfortunate relatve a copy of his examination at the Castle of Angelo. These documents furnish authentic evidence of the pertinacity with which the last leader of that formidable body denied the crimes 4 38 SECRETS OF imputed to himself and his society. His imprisonment only terminated with his life. The death of the ex-General of the Jesuits took place at the Castle of Angelo, in November, 1775. His con- fidence in his relative Scipio de Ricci appears to have been unbounded, if we may judge from the duty which he imposed upon him by his dying wish, that Ricci would recommend him to the Almighty by as many masses as he could say, seeing that he was deprived of about 22,000, which would have been performed had he expired as General of the Society of Jesuits. After his visit to Rome, in 1775, Ricci returned to Florence. He had scarcely arrived, when he was made Vicar-General, and Yicar ad causas to the Arch- bishop Incontri. This prelate had been formerly an enemy to the Jesuits ; but of late years he was one of their party. About the time when Ricci was created Vicar-General, he had given the liberty to the suppress- ed Jesuits to preach and confess ; but their seditious behavior awoke the attention of the Government, and the Prince, by a letter to the bishops, adopted the cir- cular of Clement XIV., by which these duties had been forbidden to the Jesuits. In his new situation, Ricci soon displayed his Jan- senist principles. At that period Rome saw with great displeasure the Grand Duke applying himself entirely to encourage education, and to destroy the reign of ig- norance, which she had consolidated under her false pretensions. She opposed his views as much as she could ; endeavored to put down the obnoxious cate- chism of Colbert, to stop the printing of the Ecclesi- astical History of Racine, under the auspices of the Government ; and made efforts to check an edition of Machiavel. Among the services rendered by the Jansenists to philosophy, one of the most important was their con- tending for liberty of thought and writing. The pub- lication of those writings in Tuscany was a benefit, so far as it sapped the despotism of the priesthood, and was a victory over that redoubtable power, of which FEMALE CONVENTS. 39 it was above all necessary to destroy the reputation of being invincible. A daring publication of Machiavel, that inflexible historian of the Popes and their court, whom Rome has particularly prohibited, and the free reading of whose works proved the contempt enter- tained of the Pontifical index — this act alone was a benefit to the world. CHAPTER III. Elevation of Scipio de Ricci to the Bishopric of Pistoia and Prato. — Discontent of the Pope at the Ecclesiastical Reforms of the Grand Duke Leopold.— Differences between the Civil and Spiritual Govern- ment of Tuscany, previous to the accession of Leopold. — The Senator Rucellai labors to free Tuscany from the despotism of the Court of Rome. — His Memoir on the famous Bull In Caena Domini. In 1780, the destiny of Ricci was changed by the death of Ippolite, Bishop of Pistoia. Ricci had no desire to undertake the labors of the Episcopal office, but he was in a manner forced to do so by his friends. He was received very flatteringly by the Pope, who, however, could not avoid repeating frequently: " Your Grand Duke will have to render an account to God, for so many of his actions which are hurtful to the Church." Ricci replied, " that, he hoped he should always enjoy from the Duke full protection in favor of religion, and that he did not believe him capable of doing any thing against the interests of the Catholic Church." But the Pope would not be persuaded, and added in a grave tone, " You are young, but in time you will see it !" and with these words he dismissed him. Before we proceed to the very curious and interest- ing details of the ecclesiastical abuses which Ricci was the great instrument in detecting, and of the reforms which he labored to establish, in opposition to the Court of Rome, amongst a corrupt and depraved 40 SECRETS OP priesthood, it may assist the reader to collect, into one view, the History of the Ecclesiastical Reforms in Tuscany, which preceded the election of Ricci to the Bishopric of Pistoia and Prato. The Medici had always been very desirous of the friendship of the Court of Rome, and had made it the principal object of their ambition to possess influence with it. The election of the Popes, in their time, had, in consequence, almost always depended on the will of that family; and all the Catholic princes, who had any points of importance to carry with the See of Rome, regularly endeavored to secure its good -will. In return for that species of glory, the Medici permit- ted the Popes to exercise an extensive authority in Tuscany. The Emperor Francis followed the same course in the beginning of his reign ; but in a short time Count Richecourt was sent from Yienna, to put himself at the head of the Regency, and to govern Tuscany. Power- fully aided by Senator Rucellai, Secretary of the Juris- diction, or Rights of the Crown, a species of minister for affairs connected with the Catholic worship— a man distinguished for his learning, his integrity, his firmness, and his zeal for the Government — Richecourt resisted every attempt at usurpation on the part of the Court of Rome, and opposed without intermission its iniquitous pretensions. From that moment the two courts were at open war. The first rupture which took place between them arose from the acquisitions of property in mortmain, which had been strictly forbidden, without the express permission of Government, by a law published in 1751. The Counsellor of State, Pompee Neri, and Senator Rucellai, accompanied the publication of this law with instructions and explanations, in regard to the neces- sity of preventing an increase of the prosperity of arti- ficial families, meaning corporations, collegiate bodies, convents, - 42 SECRETS OF Court of Rome. Mention is also made in it of the In- quisition, of which the Government had a short time before recognised the legality, upon condition that it should be organized on the same footing as at Yenice. That tribunal at Florence had established, without any privilege to that effect being conferred upon it, not only prisons but an armed police at the public expense ; and it succeeded easily, notwithstanding measures taken to prevent it, in eluding every restriction which was attempted to be put on its authority. This was accom- plished by means of a tacit understanding on the sub- ject between the Inquisitor and the Archbishop, who remitted to the nunciature thos,e cases of an inquisi- torial nature, of which they did not choose that the Government should take cognizance by means of its assessors. Piccolomini, Bishop of Pienza, pretending that he was subject to the Pope only, and not to the Emperor, had carried his extravagance so far as to excommunicate several of the officers of Government in his diocese, and among others, a communal chancellor of Pienza, Ruti- lus Gini. He had declared him liable to the censures of the Bull "In Coena Domini ;" and as he had at the same time expressly forbidden those priests who were under his authority, to administer to Gini any of the sacraments of the Church, so long as he should persist in, what the Bishop termed, "the public scandal of obeying the Government," he was, from his inability to obtain absolution, prevented also from marrying. After twelve years' endurance of his conduct, the Emperor had this prelate conducted to the frontiers of the Grand Duchy, under a guard of soldiers. Picco- lomini's turbulence caused him to be received with much distinction by the Pope, Clement XIII., who warmly embraced his cause, and permitted him, within his own states, to excommunicate the Emperor and all his ministers, and to post up the sentence in the usual places. There were also some differences between Tuscany and the Court of Rome, which arose out of certain FEMALE CONVENTS. 43 places being considered as asylums to which criminals might repair for evading the punishment of the law. These asylums the Government had frequently been obliged to violate for the sake of public justice ; and the Court of Rome had promised to conclude a con- cordat in regard to them, upon condition that they should all be respected by the civil authorities during the time the negotiations were pending. The Govern- ment kept its promise ; but no progress was made in the negotiation, and the asylums were full of criminals. Such was the posture of affairs at the accession of Leopold to the Grand Ducal crown. Both parties were dreadfully exasperated. Tuscany looked upon Cardinal Torrigiani, Secretary of State, as an artful and faithless priest ; while Rome considered Rucellai as her mortal enemy. The measures adopted by Leopold, and the motives which induced him to become a reformer of the exter- nal worship and ecclesiastical discipline of his States, demonstrate that he laid down as the principle of all bis operations, an invariable resolution to separate dis- tinctly what was spiritual from what was temporal ; never to intermeddle with the former in any respect, and at the same time never to permit the clergy to in- terfere in the smallest degree with the latter. He was always willing to yield to the clergy in things which were strictly spiritual ; but at the same time he fully determined not to succumb to them in those which were not within their province. He wished that his bishops should apply directly to him in all their difficulties ; and showed himself ready to assist them to the utmost of his power, whenever a proper and useful end was in view. But they lost all claims to his protection, and even to his esteem, whenever they sought to interfere in matters belonging to the State, with which, he said, they had no concern. Senator Rucellai, who, previous to the accession of Leopold to the throne of Tuscany, appears to have been the tnosl consistent and determined enemy to the abuses of the Sec of Rome, drew up for the information SECRETS OF and guidance of his sovereign, several very important and interesting memoirs, not only on minute points of ecclesiastical discipline, but on the right of the spiritual power to interfere in matters of civil government. The most remarkable of these documents is that bearing date the 14th of July, 1769, in which Rucellai combats the pretensions of the Pope to interfere with the civil obedience of the priests, by the celebrated Bull In Ccena Domini. This memoir presents many points of peculiar interest to the whole Christian community ; particularly at this period, when attempts are making to revive that dominion of the Roman priesthood, which might have been expected to have been swept away in the great conflict of opinions which has marked the last forty years. Secretary Rucellai insists particularly upon the spirit which dictated that eternal monument of priestly am- bition, the Bull In Ccena, upon the consequences of its being put in execution in Tuscany, on the means of opposing it, and of resisting at the same time the at- tempts of the Court of Rome against the rights of the Crown. " A sovereign," says he, " owes it to his own dignity, and to justice, to defend both himself and his rights against the invasion of the Bull In Ccena, and his sub- jects against the evil consequences of the measures with which it threatens them." The foundation of the Romish authority is contained in the " Body of Canon Law," and especially in that part of it entitled " Pontifical Authority." It is com- posed of bulls, letters, and replies of the Popes, and of decrees of Assemblies of his Court, and is the instru- ment by means of which Rome is enabled to convert the priesthood into an engine for the attainment of its political views, even in the States of others. The Bull, known by the name, In Ccena Domini, is a summary of all those ecclesiastical laws, which tend to establish the despotism of the Court of Rome ; a despotism of many ages, which was watered with the blood of millions of human creatures, founded with FEMALE CONVENTS. 45 the spoils of debased sovereigns, and raised on the ruins of overturned thrones. The principles of that Bull pervade, and are interwoven with, every part of the canon law, which is publicly taught in Romish semi- naries. The Bull In Carna was the origin of those scanda- lous differences between the priesthood and the Empire, which happened in the eleventh century ; differences totally unknown until the Church began to speak a language invented by the Court of Rome, in order to abuse with impunity the power of the keys, by means of the factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, which she brought forth and fostered. It was the origin also of the Inquisition, which it supported in its greatest enormities, of the crusades, of its censorships, inter- dicts, &c. &c. ; all these it employed, first to balance, and then to pull down the different powers of the Empire ; to strip it of one part of its States in Italy, and out of them to erect itself into a species of new monarchy. Sovereigns not tmfrequently deposed by their sub- jects, or rather by the subjects of the priesthood, and being incessantly threatened by fanatics who were de- voted to the Church, were compelled by necessity to trust their defence to the pens of civilians. Their rights were ably supported by Pierre Cugnree, Paris, Pierre des Vignes, Marsile of Padua, and Dante, of all of whom the Court of Rome found little difficulty in getting rid, by declaring them attainted and convicted of heresy — at that period, the most dreadful of all crimes. This attempt, which ended so unfortunately for its first promoters, was the origin and beginning of that religious reformation, which was finally adopted, with the exception of France, by every nation which was not inclined to remain in a state of slavery. The kings of France, who (headed ,-i reform, succeeded in avoid- ing it, by allowing then- subjects to be harrassed by those civil wars which Koine lighted up under the pretext of religion; by maintaining endless disputes 46 SECRETS OF with her ; and at length by accepting a system of rights, professedly granted to them alone, under the name of the " Privileges of the French Church," which the Court of Rome abhors at heart fully as much as reform and heresy. Italy, where the love of political liberty had rendered the people almost vassals of the Court of Rome, which they defended against the Emperors, not because they thought its pretensions well founded, but because it defended them in its turn, with the only weapons which could be advantageously employed against those of the Empire, — excommunications and inter- dicts, — Italy was subjected to all the abuses arising out of the sacerdotal system. From the mercantile spirit which the Italians of those times considered as the main spring, both of political principles and events, they conceived themselves interested in supporting the Court of Rome in every measure and enterprise, how- ever unjust, in order to secure to it that supreme authority over the Catholic world, which attracted to them the riches and wealth of all Europe. Rome, considered in a political point of view, was at that period the bulwark of Italian liberty ; in a mer- cantile point of view, the source and cause of Italian prosperity. To maintain this character, it was neces- sary she should preserve her power, and this she could only do by means of the gross delusion of pontifical authority. Scarcely had the new Italian Governments been rid of all fear, in regard to their independence from abroad, than they began to dread encroachment on the part of the sacerdotal body, and changed immediately their system and their conduct. Without openly declaring their opposition to the intolerable pretensions of the Court of Rome, they endeavored to invalidate them by means of new laws, all passed about the same period, whose object was to restrain the papal authority, and the personal immunities of the clergy. To speak only of Tuscany. About that period, the bishops and the tribunals of the Inquisition were de- FEMALE CONVENTS. 47 pnved of their prisons and armed servants, and steps were taken to prevent the latter, as much as possible, from doing mischief. The power of the bishops was limited, and the court of Rome restrained from appoint- ing them according to her caprice. The temporal portion of the benefices became dependent on the pub- lic authority ; opposition was indirectly made to the too frequent transferance of property into the hands of the clergy, and measures were taken to subject any new acquisitions, which they might be enabled to make, to the same changes as other property similarly situated. This indirect method, however, of opposing the Court of Rome, was soon neutralized by men so well skilled in the art of invention. She brought forward what she termed " Ecclesiastical Privilege," — an ocult right, comprehending every pretension which Rome has put forth to the present time, or which she may wish to put forth in future. By means of this pre- tended right, it is impossible to imagine a single hu- man action, over which she may not exert her influ- ence and authority, if it is in any conceivable way connected with her interests. Every thing that was in the least degree inconsist- ent with, or contrary to this ecclesiastical privilege, either directly or indirectly, was from that moment comprised in the Bull In Ccena, and anathematized. In regard to the laws of which we have just spoken; the Court of Rome maintained that they were null and void, because they had not been passed by legiti- mate authority. The states in which they had been promulgated were excommunicated, laid under an in- terdict, and attacked by the temporal forces of the reigning pontiffs, or by the subjects of other States, whom the Court of Rome had armed against their so- vereigns, because these sovereigns had ordered the laws passed in favor of their subjects to be put in force. Rome extended in this way its despotic authority over all the States of Italy, and in a special manner 48 SECRETS OF over the Republic of Florence, until it adopted the system pursued by the Spanish civilians. These au- thorities, taking the pretensions of the Court of Rome for what they were, without any examination of their merits, guarded the Government against any abuse which might result from them, by demanding that every order or prohibition, and, generally speaking, every writing or document emanating from that court, whether of a spiritual or temporal nature, should be subjected to a censorship. It was the duty of the cen- sors to examine whether they were contrary to any existing law of the State, and to take care that they should not become binding until, with due consent from the sovereign, they had been lawfully published in his dominions. The necessity of the Exequatur, or legal publica- tion, is the basis of the jurisdiction and rights of the Crown, in every state where the Roman religion pre- vails ; and if the law were strictly executed, and every infraction of it regularly punished, the power of Rome would cease to be a subject of alarm 3 as well as a source of mischief. The Court of Rome was the first to perceive the consequences which would necessarily result from en- forcing this law, and consequently to condemn it. It declared all those who ordered its execution, or who should execute it themselves, to be under the censures of the Bull In Coma ; but even this produced not the desired effect, and Rome was obliged to tolerate the existence of the Exequatur. All its cunning is now employed in endeavoring to elude it, which it sometimes does, even in the case of the most enlightened Governments. The Govern- ment ought, consequently, to be always on its guard, in order to detect its attempts, and to restrain the clergy who abet them. The difficulty lay in finding out in what way those who transgressed the law of the Exequatur should be punished. Extra-judicial and summary punishments would be unjust, because they savor so much of arbi- FEMALE CONVENTS. 40 trary authority, which forms no part of a sovereign's rights. Besides summary judgments are forcible means, which the stronger party employs against the weaker, because he cannot proceed against him in a legal manner ; or, because those against whom he puts them in practice, are not liable to the operation of the law. Rucellai consequently does not judge it prudent to al- low, even tacitly, that the clergy are in either of these predicaments ; as its only effect would be to render the clergy more interesting and venerable in the eyes of the people, and to augment its authority by a dimi- nution of that of the sovereign. Rucellai was desirous that the priests should be punished as transgressors of the national laws, and that their obedience to the Bull In Coma should cease to operate as an excuse for them ; not because it was not published with the Exequatur, for it has been published every where, is still published, and its prin- ciples taught in the schools, and inculcated, on peni- tent by their confessors, but because it was demon- stratively unjust, subversive of all the rights of sove- reignty, of law, of good order, and of public tranquil- lity. The priests who are the principal executors of the Bull /// Ccsna in the penitentiary chair, are only per- mitted to decide according to the orders of their Bish- op. The Bishop, in his turn, is only an instrument of the ( '"i i it of Rome, and the wretched slave of her ca- price ever since she succeeded, by means of false de- cretals, in changing into an oath of fidelity and vas- salage, that profession of faith which is made before being admitted a member of the Church. That oath is, in fact, a solemn promise, not only to be unfaithful /<> one's lawful sovereign, but even to be- tray him, as often as the interests of the Court of Rome nun/ render it necessary. Governments, by allowing such an oath to be taken, thereby recognise it as obligatory. The priests who observe it, by putting in force the 50 SECRETS OF Bull In Ccena, and refusing absolution to those who violate it, or who do not repent of having violated it, are rebels to the Government of their country, which has proscribed it ; those who do not observe it, are ne- cessarily perjured. If the priests who have to decide between such dis- agreeable alternatives are objects of pity, much more so are those people deserving of compassion, who con- sider it their duty to surrender their judgment into the hands of their pastor. Rucellai proposes, as a remedy for all these contra- dictions, to consider the Bull In Ccena as an unjust civil law, enacted by the Pope, which he would wil- lingly put in force in the dominions of other sove- reigns, and to forbid its direct or indirect publication. It appeared preferable to Rucellai, that, by a decla- ration on the part of the ecclesiastical power itself, both the priests and their hearers shoi.ld be freed from the obligation, in foro conscientia?, of observing the Bull ; but such a declaration could only emanate from the Pope, who would never make it, unlefFhe were compelled to it by an union of all the Catholic Governments ; or, unless he saw clearly, that it was as much his interest to annul it, as it was formerly his interest to establish it, in despite of religion and every thing that was sacred. In the mean time, it will be necessary, says Rucel- lai, to adhere to the proposed law, which may be com- municated to the Court of Rome, in order that it may prevent its publication by the only means in its power, the abrogation of the Bull. In the event of adopting this plan, it will be necessary to convince the Court of Rome that Government has taken its determination, and that no negotiation or species of treaty can take place on the subject," The order of the Grand Duke to suppress entirely the Bull In Cama Domini, and the command never to mention it in future in Tuscany, became the law of the land. But this law, before it could be brought into full force, had to be frequently renewed. In a cir- FEMALE CONVENTS. 51 cular letter of the Secretary of Jurisdiction, addressed to the bishop of Pistoia, Ricci's predecessor, in 1772, it is asserted that the Government had been apprised of the Bull In Cana, proscribed in every Catholic state, being still affixed to the sacristies and confes- sionals of some churches of the Grand Duchy, and of some* persons having had the hardihood to publish it from the pulpit or the altar, during the holy week. An anecdote relating to this Bull will illustrate the retrogression which every pretended restoration causes in the people under the dominion of arbitrary legiti- macy. "In 1815, Ruffo, Archbishop of Naples, a relation of Cardinal Ruffo, published a list of reserved cases, among which were infractions of the Bull In Ccena Domini. Ferdinand IV. having been informed of this violation of the laws of the kingdom, ordered his mi- nister for ecclesiastical affairs to cause the list of re- served cases to be suppressed by the Cardinal whose name it bore, and to reprimand in severe terms the monk who had drawn the prelate by his perfidious counsels into such an act of disobedience, threatening him at the same time with banishment from the Nea- politan territory, if he attempted again to disturb the public tranquillity. The minister, in executing the orders of his sovereign, employed one of his principal assistants, Luc Cagnazzi, a priest and archdeacon, to write to Cardinal Ruffo. After the fall of the Neapolitan constitutional Gov- ernment, when Ferdinand had been restored a third time to the plenitude of his sovereign good pleasure, Luc Cagnazzi was stripped of his office, solely because agreeably to the instructions of the minister, who only obeyed his sovereign, he had composed the letter in question : his dismissal was demanded by the Car- dinal. We have given this abstract of Rucellai's memoir, because the Bull In Ccena is actually invoked by the Court of Rome ; because it regards it as still existing in full force, and because it grants to its ministers, 52 SECRETS OF even now y power to absolve those who might be weak enough to believe that they had incurred its penalties. Rucellai adds, that all that he has proposed is merely a precautionary measure ; and that the sole political purpose of every measure relating to religious juris- diction ought to be to put the clergy on a level with the laity, in as far as relates to the duties of citizens, and to abolish all their immunities, both real and per- sonal ; and while that end remains unaccomplished, there will always be "a State within the State," and an everlasting source of controversy and dispute. In order to attain sooner and more certainly this end in Tuscany, all the inferior prelates possessing jurisdiction, such as abbots, priors, guardians of con- vents, &c, should be obliged to exhibit their election- patents, to obtain their confirmation by Government, which should keep them as much within its control as possible. They should be subjected, as well as the bishops, to an oath of fidelity which should bring both them and their jurisdiction within the immediate influence of the civil authority. By the adoption of these measures, there will be nothing to dread from those prisons, which can scarcely be refused to seve- ral religious orders, and which are tolerated by the State. The special point is to prevent them from pos- sessing clandestine prisons, which would be infinitely worse than allowing them legal ones ; or permitting' them to elude the prohibition to possess them, by any of those equally criminal means, which their immorality may suggest to them. In the present state of things, the superiors of certain orders, which hold a middle rank between cynicism and stoicism, make frequently a very bad use of their prisons, concerning which no regulation has been made by the civil authority, and which they nevertheless cannot do without, because reason alone is insufficient to secure to them a proper degree of respect. It is therefore an indispensable duty of the Government to keep a watchful eye on these prisons, in order to insure the safety of those in- dividuals who are obliged to live under a despotism, FEMALE CONVENTS. 53 more uncontrolled and absolute than that of an Afri- can tyrant. The oath which must be required of them is only the means of recalling to the minds of the priests who take it, their natural duties as citizens — duties which are born with them, and from which the ecclesiastical profession which they have since adopted, cannot emancipate them. The oath must be so clear as that those who conscientiously believe it their duty to ob- serve the Bull In Ccena, may refuse to take it, and also to accept the bishopricks and preferments which can only be obtained by taking it. The sacerdotal power will remain invulnerable as long as those who exercise it believe that they have a right to be distinguished by peculiar privileges and immunities from their fellow-citizens. Every thing which reduces them to a level with the laity, dimin- ishes in the mind of the public the idea of«,their in- dependence, and consequently destroys what is in re- ality the true basis of Romish grandeur. The oath by which they will be bound will certainly produce that effect, and will besides furnish a strong ground for proceeding against them in case of their infringing the law. The Court of Rome will oppose the taking of the new oath ; and perhaps go so far as to prohibit its being taken ; allow the bishopricks to remain vacant, and by that means render the administration of the sacraments more unfrequent and more difficult; but she will in that case have to contend with the whole body of priests, whose preferment and increase of revenue, the only /hiii 'j really interesting to them, it may have been the means of checking. If the Court of Rome can once be convinced thai the Government is deter- mined not to yield in the struggle, nor even not to en- ter upon any negotiation for trie purpose of accommo- dating matters, from which, by means of her usual chicanery, she could hope to obtain any advantage ; she will give up the point, lest she should lose the whole of her rights in endeavoring to preserve a part 5 # r,4 SECRETS OF of them. From the moment that she takes such a step, the promises which her clergy may make to her, will appear to them only obligatory in so far as they are not in opposition to the oath which they had taken to Go- vernment with the consent of Rome herself. During the live centuries that Romanists have been governed by pontifical authority, the Court of Rome has employed all the means in her power to fix as an irrevocable principle, that " the clergy are not under the authority of the State in which they reside," and that they are the subjects of Rome alone, in as far as relates to their persons and property. She never will dare to avow such a principle openly; all that she re- quires is, that the clergy on whom she inculcates that belief should be fully persuaded of its truth. They, on their part, pride themselves upon avowing themselves in public the subjects of Government, whenever i t suits their interest to profess it — that is, whenever they are desirous either of bread or of honors. Rome, on her part, can- not condemn the oath which is proposed, on the score of novelty ; for it has been taken in France and in other countries : nor can she condemn it on the score of its being imposed upon individuals who are not sub- ject to the general laws of the kingdom ; for such a proposition would be odious in the extreme, and rouse the attention, even of the most careless Governments, to such unheard-of impudence and audacity, especially at a time which is by no means favorable to any usur- pation on the part of Rome. FEMALE COXVENTS. CHAPTER IV. Anxiety of the Grand-duke to procure information on the abuses of the Church. — Letter from Villensi, pointing out some necessary changes. — Letter from a Nun, complaining of the irregularities of her Convent. — Memoir of Rucellai, on the scandalous conduct of a Confessor. — Men- dicant Priests. — Abolition of the privileges of Sanctuaries. — Letter of Rucellai on the abuses of the Religious Orders. The vigilant attention of Leopold to ecclesiastical abuses in his dominions, was kept alive by the com- munications which he invited and received from pri- vate persons. Villensi, Friar of Santo V-ito, addressed to the Grand- duke, in 1768, a letter, in which he suggests the best means of diminishing the abuses which disgraced the religious system. He requests his Royal Highness to keep his name secret unless he wishes him to run the risk of being stoned to death. He proposes the extirpation of men- dicity amongst the priesthood, which would render the people more active and industrious. The most vigor- ous and robust of the mendicants, says the Prior, might be sent to work in the marshes, and the lame and in- firm deposited in houses of seclusion, for the main- tenance of which, the convents ought to pay what they formerly disbursed, if we may believe them, in the way of charities. He complains of the insults offered to the Councils of the ('lunch by the numerous hulls and briefs which are constantly manufactured in the Datary's oilice at Rome, in favor of all who pay for them ; and quotes, among other examples, the permission, contrary to the regulations passed by the Council of Trent, of saying I tefore the age of twenty-five ; that of contracting marriages within the prohibited degrees, &c. &c. With regard to the Convents, it was his wish that their excessive wealth should be employed for the be- nciit of the State, and the support of the indigent; that the 300 crowns per annum which the carriage of (be 5C SECRETS OF Abbot cost, with the money expended on his domes- tics and furniture, should be appropriated to the use of the hospitals ; that the monks should no longer go out, except in company with some one of their order, under pain of banishment ; and that they should be prohi- bited from transacting the business of their establish- ments, and be released from the necessity of holding any intercourse with the laity, either male or female, in buying or selling ; and that a secular person attach- ed to the convents ought to be intrusted with the ma- nagement of these matters, so as to allow the monks to devote their attention to the rules of their order. For the same reason, the monks should be released from the spiritual care of souls, which continually dis- tracts their attention from the duties of their pro- fession. They must also be prohibited from either demanding or accepting, from the Court of Rome, brevets or privileges which drain their purses, and au- thorize them to violate their by-laws. Superfluity of every kind ought to be banished from the churches and sacristies, the simplicity of religion only demand- ing what is absolutely necessary for the proper per- formance of its rites. The importunate and scan- dalous crowds of begging friars ought to be sup- pressed ; the visits of generals, vicar-generals, pro- vincials and inspectors, which have always been a great source of expense, and have never given rise to the least reform, prohibited; and no one allowed to make profession in any order, except at a very advanced age. It would also be highly proper to suppress six or eight convents of nuns, there are more than sixty in Tuscany, and apply the funds arising from them to the maintenance of the poor. Those which remain ought to be governed by a layman, that their re- venues, which are constantly augmenting by addi- tional portions, may not decrease. It would be even more useful to dispose of the property of the female convents, and lo form it into a bank ; which, after paying twenty per cent, to government, would afford FEMALE CONVENTS. 57 them the two per cent, which they were in the habit of drawing from it. The Prior complains bitterly of the great number of priests resident in Florence, who neither knew, nor could do anything beyond saying a mass ! Want. says he, compels them to employ themselves as inten- dants and preceptors in large families, to buy, to sell, to manage the domestic affairs of their masters ; to conduct their children to the promenade, and even to take charge of a stable at so much per month, as if they were grooms ; all in the hope of obtaining a benefice from the family by which they are employed. The proper method of remedying such disgraceful practices, is to refuse benefices to all those who had descended to such degrading services. The poorer priests might be allowed to confess the nuns, after the monks had been deprived of the office, and they would gain by that means what the latter were in the habit of receiving for it 1 Those ecclesiastics who are con- stantly in pursuit of honors and dignities ; who busy themselves in intrigues to obtain them, and then recruit themselves from the fatigues of their despicable intrigues in places of public amusement ; might under- take, gratis, the administration of hospitals, visit them for the purpose of seeing that the duties were properly discharged, &c. This would be a great saving to these useful establishments, and a subject of noble emulation for the young priests, who would thereby be led to consider the practice of virtue and zeal in the can Je of beneficence, as the only way of accomplishing their desires. The scandal which arises from those priests, de- nominated coachmen, and postilions, &c., from their saying muss as if they were running post, and who ore constantly in a hurry to go from one church to another, in order to do as much business as possible, ought to be ended. The sacristies might also be served by laymen, which would diminish the useless and frightful number of clerks of (lie lower classes ; who, like the two hundred clerks of the Metropolitan 53 SECRETS OF Church, waste their time till the age of twenty-five, without learning any thing, and then get themselves consecrated as a reward for their pretended services. People would not then make it a subject of remark, that Florence, out of a population of 80,000 inhabit- ants, maintained 3000 priests, whilst out of a popula- tion of 400,000 at Vienna, there are only 300. The theatres, coffee-houses, and other places frequented by monks, would also be less encumbered with their presence. He is also anxious that the Archbishop of Florence should keep a watchful eye on the tax-office for bulls and benefices, in order to put an end to every thing in the shape of arbitrary impositions, by means of an invariable rate for each act of grace. He demands a reform of the festivals. By transfer- ring the observance of the festivals to the Sunday fol- lowing the day on which they are held, twenty-five days more labor could be performed in the course of the year ; and the twenty vigils, which occasion such an enormous expense, would be suppressed ; while the festivals would be more decently observed. The other letter to the Grand Duke exhibits, in a singular manner, the enormities committed in the female convents through Tuscany. It was addressed to Leopold by a nun of Castiglion Fiorentino ; and led the way to those investigations of the scandalous abuses, by which Ricci subsequently rendered his ecclesiastical career so remarkable. " Our convent/' she says, "is under the direction of the Minor Observatines, and is consequently in a state of the greatest irregularity and disorder. The superior and the old nuns confine themselves entirely to their cells, and occupy themselves in various em- ployments, without paying the least attention to what goes on between the other nuns and those persons who have the privilege of admission within the walls of the cloister. I had for a long time ob- served that the factor of the convent carried on in- trigues with the young nuns, and that his intercourse FEMALE CONVENTS. 59 with one of them was indecent in the extreme. In order, however, not to form too hasty and unjust a judgment of them, I concealed myself in a neighboring apartment, and discovered that they were in the habit of committing the most indecent actions. Since that time, whenever the factor makes his appearance, I always remain, under pretence of age, being nearly fifty, below with my work, and walk backwards and forwards, in order not to allow him an opportunity of being alone with the nuns. The Abbess was the means of engaging that factor, which she did almost by force, against the opinion of others who thought him too young. She is very angry with me, and will certainly not fail to punish me in some way or other. " I cannot complain to the Provincial ; for the monks will not listen to any complaints of the kind. Their answer uniformly is, when any are made, that they proceed from malignity and calumny ; while those who speak to them concerning them, are declared to be foolish, scandalous, and turbulent persons, who spy the actions of others, who do not behave like true nuns, and who ought to be imprisoned, &c. The nuns are therefore obliged either to allow such enor- mous irregularities to go unchecked, or to run the risk of imprisonment for life, under some false pretext. No one cares whether a nun remains alone with the factor. If any amusement is going forward, the factor is invited to the convent, where he shuts himself up in a room with one of them, and sometimes with two, if they are intimate with him. " The monks, to insure themselves against dislike on the part of the nuns, overlook the whole; for our confessor, who is always selected from that body, is supported by the nuns, who must supply him with every thing which he desires, during the lime that he is obliged to occupy a dwelling in the neighborhood of the convent. Finding themselves well provided with every thing which they want, these monies do not give themselves the least trouble about the abuses which prevail in the convents. There are even some of them GO SECRETS OF who make love to the nuns, and render them much more impudent than the lay members who are guilty of the same practices. Some years ago, a monk was found in the convent during the night, and expelled from it by the bailiffs. The affair, in consequence, became universally known." The nun is of opinion, that the case of the factor was much more blameable, inasmuch as his duties provided him with constant opportunities of sinning. She therefore supplicates the Grand Duke to order a nobleman, on whom the factor was dependent, to recall him to Florence, without allowing it to appear that he was at all acquainted with the irregularity of his con- duct: "For," says she, "if what J." now write to you were known, it would be sufficient to cause me to be poisoned by my companions, who are totally given up to vice." She requests the prince to speak to the pro- vincial, and to tell him, that "if she is punished under any pretext whatever, he will take from him the direction of the convent, and transfer it to the bishop." The above letter is dated May, 1770, from the con- vent of Jerome, at Castiglion Fiorentino, and signed Lucrece Leonide Beroardi. Leopold dismissed the factor. The scandalous wickedness of some members of the priesthood, under the cloak of religion, and by a perversion of its authority, was known to the grand duke in 1766. Senator Rucellai then addressed to his Prince a memoir relating to the intrigues of the Tus- can Inquisitors, of the higher orders of the clergy of the Grand Duchy, of the Nunciature at Florence, and of the Court of Rome ; all of whom labored in concert to elude the wise laws of the late Emperor. A lady of the name of Maria Catherine Barni, of Santa Croce, declared on her death-bed that she had been seduced through the medium of confession, and that she had, during twelve years, maintained a crimi- nal intercourse with a priest, Pierre Pacchiani, Prior of St. Martin at Castel-Franco-di-Sotto, who was her FEMALE CONVENTS. 61 confessor. She denounced him to the Bishop of Miniato. May, 1764. He had assured her that, by means of the super- natural light which he had received from Jesus and the Holy Virgin, he was perfectly certain that neither of them were guilty of sin in carrying on that corres- pondence. Maria Magdalen Sicini, of Santa Croce, whom she had pointed out as being in the same predicament with herself, deposed; that generally about an hour after the confession was over, Pacchiani had a crimi- nal intercourse with her in the vestry; that she knew well enough that she was committing sin, and that she made confession of it afterwards to Pacchiani himself, who excused her because it had been done with good intentions. This lady named another, Vict.oire Benedetti, who, at her examination, made a declaration to the same effect ; only adding, that she had not had the least scruple in regard to her connexion with Pacchiani. The trial of that priest for heretical propositions belonged properly to the Inquisition ; but, after much intrigue and manoeuvring, the affair got into the hands of the Archbishop; next into those of the Nuncio; then into those of the Court of Rome; and Pacchiani, who had been dismissed, finally returned to his parish. The Government was made perfectly acquainted with the whole transaction ; but in such a way as to be unable to take any notice of it. It was also aware that Pacchiani had been guilty of several disgraceful tricks; that he was in the habit of compelling the dying to make wills in his favor, by threats of refusing i<> ;m I mil lister the sacraments; that he had used his endeavors to prevent Barni from making any confes- sion on her death-bed; that his Bishop had been obliged to imprison him, in order to remove him from B (-.invent of nuns ; and that he had delivered from the pulpit ;i discourse full of sedition. The Grand Duke caused him to be dismissed. The Bcandal brought on the doctrines and professors 6 62 SECRETS OF of religion, by the wretchedness and demoralization of the mendicant priests, was brought before the Grand Duke by Rucellai, in 1766. He replied to the in- quiries of his sovereign, by detailing various consider- ations, as to the best means of diminishing the exces- sive number of those wandering drones, who, without either nomination or benefice, swarmed in Tuscany, and especially at Florence, on account of the college or seminary of the cathedral. That seminary was composed of a hundred and thirty young men, who were employed in the service of the church, and of whom no fewer than sixty-six were annually conse- crated, as a reward for their services. Rucellai was of opinion that a diminution of the number of young men in the seminary, would give rise to a great out- cry, and would fail in accomplishing the end in view. It is the patrimony of the Church which we must diminish, says he, if we wish to diminish the number of those who live by it ; and who would become dis- ciples of Mohamed, if the revenues which they enjoy were appropriated to Mussulmans. A diminution of the wealth of the clergy, under existing circumstances, was altogether impossible, without a complete over- throw of the political system. To fix it definitively in such a way as to prevent its increase, appeared to him extremely difficult, on account of the tendency of every body of men towards prosperity, and more espe- cially of every sacerdotal body ; it being but too true, that superstition and wealth go hand in hand together. The only part of this measure which could have been easily executed, was prohibiting the priests from accepting additional foundations for perpetual masses, which they increased in number by every pious fraud which they could devise. These foundations infected Florence, more than any other place, with the refuse of the clergy, who were attracted from the neigh- boring dioceses by the profits arising from the masses. There was also another method of accomplishing the object in view ; to unite all the simple benefices and obligations, &c, upon which the useless part of FEMALE CONVENTS. 63 the clergy lived, and who, in this way, would soon have disappeared ; but the consent of Rome was necessary to the adoption of that measure ; and it would, undoubtedly, have refused to co-operate in the execution of a plan contrary to its policy, prejudicial to its finances, and destructive of its authority. The Senator concludes by giving it as his opinion, that it would be much better to make use of the means already at the disposal of Government, — which, though they might be slow in accomplishing- the end in view, would attain it much more certainly and quietly ; — considering always the increasing wealth of the clergy as an evil necessarily connected with the present system — as a malady inseparable from the political body. For this purpose it will be necessary, says he, to oppose, both constantly and vigorously, that maxim of the Church, so contrary to the Gospel, to the Councils, and to the writings of the Fathers, " that the Church forms a State within the State ;" to treat the persons and property of ecclesiastics in the same way as the persons and property of other citizens ; to return to those Christian times, during which the property of the Church was considered as public property, belonging to the State, and entirely at the disposal of the civil authority. The clergy and their property were not more dangerous to the State, than other wealthy persons and their property ; be- eanse they were then undistinguished by any pre- rogatives, privileges, or immunities. Rucellai coun- Beffed Leopold to put his authority in force ; to exercise a real jurisdiction over his clergy, by exercising it over their property ; to prevent the augmentation of their territorial wealth, by applying the law of the late Emperor, concerning the acquisition of property in mortmain, which had already restored much land to commerce and circulation ; to keep the clergy in check by the dread of extra-judicial and summary sentences of banishment and sequestration against their persons and revenues; and to avoid endless and fatal quarrels with the Court of Rome. 64 SECRETS OF One of the greatest abuses of the power of the Church in Tuscany, and the most shameful obstacle to the progress of civil justice, was the number of asylums reputed sacred, whose privileges had filled the churches of Tuscany with vagabonds and disturb- ances. The Grand Duke was perfectly aware of his right and authority to abolish this abuse, without the consent or intervention of any one ; but he was willing to concede, and proposed a concordat, which should confer upon him the same privileges which had been bestowed on the other Catholic powers, or the adoption of some provisional measure. He was determined not to suffer any longer, in his dominions, disorders which Rome herself, notwithstanding her desire to protect them in those of others, would not tolerate in her own ; and which, being beneficial to criminals only, were a disgrace both to religion and to the Govern- ment. A memoir of Rucellai, of 1764, shows that Tuscany was completely filled with churches. Flo- rence alone reckoned 320, of which the farthest from one another were not above 300 paces ; they occupied one half of the ground which had been built upon in the town, and had enjoyed for more than 163 years all the privileges granted by the Bulls of the different Popes. Leopold caused the reflections which Rucellai had made on the concordats concluded by Rome, relative to asylums, with Naples in 1741, with Sardinia and Piedmont in 1742, and with Austria for the states of Lombardy in 1757, to be submitted to his considera- tion. The inconveniences of those concordats, and of every concordat whatsoever, by means of which the Court of Rome succeeded in procuring from sovereigns a recognition of the legality of the pretended rights which are the object of the treaty, are clearly pointed out in that document. Rucellai preferred to these different concordats, the scheme of a provisional regu- lation presented by the Abbe Neri. That scheme, which received Leopold's consent did not admit of the inviolability of the asylums in any FEMALE CONVENTS. 65 case whatever ; but provided for the remission of capital and mutilating- punishments, in the case of those who might be taken from the asylums; and also, for the remission of a third part of every other punish- ment of a lesser degree. By this means the objection was removed which existed in regard to the exceptions and explanations admitted in the concordats ; excep- tions of which the tortuous policy of the Court of Rome, which decided upon them, enabled her always to take advantage, and of which she never permitted any one to foresee the intention. The abolition of capital punishments would certainly, says Rucellai, have displeased those who work upon punishment as the basis of all government, and the main spring of every political system. Neri observes that capital punishments had been dispensed with in several States, without the least inconvenience ; and that it is the certainty of punishment and not the measure of it, which restrains mankind within the line of their duty, and checks the commission of crime. The Grand Duke, in consequence, gave orders to Baron Odilc, his minister at Rome, to commence nego- tiations on this subject with zeal and promptitude, and not to rest satisfied either with the words, or the dila- tory and uncertain promises, with which that court always colors its refusals. The reiterated orders and numerous couriers of Leopold could not, however, get any thing satisfactory from the Cardinal Secretary of State, to whom he caused it to be announced, that if he would not condescend upon a clear and categorical answer, he was determined to proceed with it. The court of Rome in spite of the continued remon- strances of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, evaded for several years any settlement of the question of asylums. Leopold at last determined to act for himself; and the year L769 was remarkable for the great reform intro- duced by him, which at length restored to Justice both the strength and the liberty which she required for the prevention of crime, by the salutary terrors of unavoid able punishment, and re-established order and security 6* 66 SECRETS OF in his States, under the protection of impartial laws, which allowed neither privilege nor exemption. The Grand Duke who had communicated to the Court of Austria the documents which related to the differences existing between him and the Pope in regard to asylums, and the plan which he had formed for repairing the mischief which the inviolability of these refuges had engendered, received the approbation of the Empress ; and consequently, he informed the Court of Rome, that he had caused the malefactors in his dominions to be taken from the asylums and immured in prisons. On the same day his plan was put in execution at Florence, at Sienna, and at Grosseto, and the next day in the rest of the Grand Duchy. Leopold, surrounded with the most learned and enlightened persons in Tuscany, and well skilled himself in ecclesiastical history, was perfectly aware that during the first nine centuries of the Church, the clergy took no part in civil matters beyond the inter- cession of the bishops and priests with the Supreme Authority, for some diminution of the punishment incurred by criminals. The decree of Gratian was the first which claimed for the ecclesiastical body the power of judging per- sons who were accused of crimes ; but it was not till 1591, that Gregory XIV. originated the abuse and scandal of asylums, by pointing out eight crimes to which that privilege could not be accorded, and by ordaining that the ecclesiastical tribunals should thenceforth finally decide whether those who had taken refuge were or were not within the excepted cases. The privilege of asylums was every where, dimin- ished : in France, even in the time of Leopold, the Church did not interfere in behalf of criminals ; and in Germany very seldom. In the Low Countries, as well as in Italy, very vigorous measures had been taken to do away with the abuse, which nevertheless has always been more slow in these cases than other FEMALE CONVENTS. 67 Catholic countries, on account of its propinquity to Rome. Venice had, however, given the example, and it had been followed by Lombardy, Turin, Parma, Naples, and even by the Pontifical States. Tuscany, therefore, was the only country in which the most atrocious crimes, as well as the most trifling offences, remained not only unpunished, but even en- couraged and protected by the privilege of the churches. Assassins, fratricides, poisoners, incendiaries, deserters, robbers, sons of the nobility who wished to withdraw themselves from paternal authority ; monks who had subjected themselves to punishment from their supe- riors, or soldiers from their officers ; those who had contracted debts. &c. &c. — all took refuge in the same asylum, were all equally well received, and lived in a state of the greatest disorder. They frequently disturbed the performance of divine service, and often maltreated the clergy ; committed crime after crime, insulted and even wounded those who attended the church, where they had been receiv- ed without shame, and were supported and openly de- fended. There they kept a school for the instruction of the young in robbery and swindling, sold contra- band goods and stolen wares. They had prostitutes among them, slept pele-mele under the porticoes, and not unfrequently had children born to them during the time that they remained in the asylum. They ate, drank, worked at their trades, and kept open shop in thf churches. They wore concealed arms, arrested the passengers in order to ransom them, and fired at the agents of the police if they happened to pass by. They sallied out secretly to commit fresh robberies and assassinations, and returned within the sanctuary of the church, in order to enjoy, without fear, the pro- tection which the temple and its ministers granted them. The convents were, however, the greatest recepta- cles of cr inii i Kits, whom the monks treated remarkably well, on account of tbe benefit which they derived from their domestic labors, and because they could use them 68 SECRETS OP as instruments for the commission of those frauds which they were desirous of executing, and as apologies for those of which they were themselves guilty, and which they failed not to place to the credit of their guests. They employed them particularly in contraband trade for the use of the convent. A short time previous to the reform of the asylum, the monks of the convent of Spirito, at Florence, car- ried their impudence so far, as to allot a chamber among the novices to a robber who had attempted to kill his own brother. Such was the deplorable state of that beautiful part of Italy. There were, on the suppression of the asy- lums, eighty refugees, of whom a third had been guilty of wilful murder, and the rest, either for cutting or maiming the inhabitants, or of committing extensive robberies. Several of them had made their escape from the galleys. It was determined, in consequence, not to allow them any longer the privilege of asylum, and a law was passed, which enjoined the public authority to seize, for the future, every refugee, in whatever asylum he might be found — civil debtors, not fraudulent bank- rupts, only excepted — and to carry him before the ordinary tribunals, for the purpose of being sentenced, if sufficient cause was shown, to ten years' confinement in irons, in case of his crime deserving capital punish- ment ; to five, if it deserved ten ; and so on, always mitigating the punishment, out of regard to the spot on which he had been apprehended. This was the only method of managing the affair, so as to preserve the rights of the sovereign entire, to show respect for the privileges of the churches, and to put an end to irregularities and crimes, which the honor, the dignity, and even the conscience of the prince, forbade him to tolerate any longer. Another document illustrative of the ecclesiastical condition of Tuscany, before the administration of Ricci, contains some curious details of abuses, both as it regards the number and discipline of the religious FEMALE CONVENTS. 69 orders. It is a letter of Rucellai, December, 1770, written in reply to some questions which the Grand Duke had addressed to him. Leopold had requested him to make out plans, 1, for diminishing as quickly as possible the number of con- vents in Tuscany, and of the individuals inhabiting them, and also for preventing foreigners from becoming inmates of them ; 2, for the prevention of religious vows, at an earlier age than twenty-four years ; 3, for prohibiting mendicants of religious orders from receiv- ing novices before the age of sixteen or eighteen ; 4, for suppressing all convents of mendicant orders contain- ing fewer than twelve persons ; 5, for enabling the secular priests only, and especially the curates, to preach in the country, and for preventing the monks from exercising that function ; 6, for excluding the monks from the direction of female convents, which ought to be regulated in spiritual matters by the ordi- naries only. Rucellai says in reply : — " The support and duration of religious orders depend partly on the success of the monks in procuring recruits, and partly on the interest which families have in supplying them with them. This could not possibly be the case if perpetual vows were not taken at so early an age as sixteen ; at an age which has no safeguard either against seduction or violence. The monks accordingly showed them- selves particularly anxious, at the Council of Trent, to retain this privilege, in order, as they said, to pre- vail the destruction of the monastic establishments. This avowal, on their part, points out the line of conduct which ought to be adopted by Government: for as the vows which the individual takes upon him, deprive him of various rights which lie formerly pos- sessed, and free him, much to the prejudice of his fellow- citizens and of his country, according to the tenor of the Canon law, from the performance of various duties wliuh he w,is hound to discharge to society, the tem- poral or civil power ought to regulate every thing relating to solemn vows and professions, in the same 70 SECRETS OF manner that it regulates all other civil acts, and to limit and modify them agreeably to what its existence and its interests appear to require. It is absolutely necessary that the sovereign should have it in his power to prohibit the putting on of the religious habit without his express permission. Rome, however, has always opposed such an exercise of au- thority, to the utmost of her power. She saw clearly that the establishment of such a regulation would, in the end, destroy, or at least greatly weaken, her reli- gious communities, " which she justly regards as so many collective bodies of her subjects ; as armed le- gions, which she maintains abroad at the expense of the countries in which they so blindly execute her or- ders. These orders she veils with the mantle of reli- gion, and has the art of getting them as well executed by those to whom she intrusts them, as if they had a personal interest in doing what not unfrequently exposes them to all the vengeance of their Govern- ments." Rome will be just as clamorous against the adoption of any measures for regulating the time and mode of taking vows, as if these measures were offensive to the Almighty himself. Rucellai would not fix any age, as the lawful one, for the solemn profession of vows, unless Rome con- sented to it ; this he does not believe that she would do, even though she were compelled, for the purpose of giving a refusal, to recognise the superior authority of the Council of Trent, to which she would probably have recourse under such circumstances, although she has violated its decisions in so many others. The ul- terior obligation of vows, taken canonically at the age of sixteen, would therefore still remain; while the sove- reign would only have succeeded in obliging his sub- jects to deceive him. He proposes to prohibit the adoption of the ecclesi- astical and religious habit, under any pretext whatever, before the age of twenty-one. Children who submit to the tonsure at the age of FEMALE CONVENTS. 71 seven, and young' people who enter the convent at fif- teen, although not bound by any particular obligation, do not afterwards leave off their religious profession. " That profession, in the present state of things, is one which is expressly made for those whom circumstances had designed for a life of industry ; namely, for the great mass of mankind. From the age of seven or ten, till twenty-four, young people, destined for profession, are only taught the service of the church, a little Latin, and some theological definitions — a kind of knowledge which cannot be exchanged to much pecuniary advan- tage, except by the clergy." They must .embrace this profession, therefore, either voluntarily or by force ; and even when they are totally incapable, and their conduct has been such as to render them utterly un- worthy of being admitted into it, the bishops, through compassion for them and their family, make no scruple in letting them pass. One might almost say, that they had become monks or priests, from the very moment they put on the livery of the Church, which, by depriving them of all other means of making a livelihood, necessarily condemns them to the exercise of the ecclesiastical profession. Thus they have bound themselves to become priests when they should be of age to embrace the profession, in the same way as an apprenticed mason, by exercis- ing his trade in his early years, binds himself to it for the rest of his life. Ruccllai shows that his scheme, so lit lor rooting out, at a single blow, the whole of the inferior clergy — the greatest part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy — would give great offence to the Court of Rome, terrify the people, and be productive of embar- rassment to the Government. In regard to diminishing the number of nuns, he is of opinion, that nothing can be done in that way without previously facilitating marriages, or having procured for women some middle resource between marriage and religious profession — a resource which did not exist in Tuscany. The Government will there- loir be obliged to resl contented, with prohibiting the 72 SECRETS OP superiors from receiving more novices than they have the means of supporting, the number of which ought to be fixed ; as well as from receiving any portion alono- with them at the time of taking the vows. If the sole question relate to diminishing the number of monks, ^reat care ought to be taken in endeavoring to accomplish that object, lest the means employed should have any tendency to fill the Tuscan convents with foreign monks ; to incite the Tuscans to adopt the profession elsewhere ; or, finally, to prevent young students from other countries from repairing for their education to,the Tuscan monasteries. The step which ought to be adopted, is to cause an exact account to be given of the temporal wealth of the monks; and when that has been procured, to fax the precise number of individuals whom they are able to maintain, and, consequently, to receive m each es- tablishment. This ought to be accompanied by an order to observe strictly the injunctions of the BulJs, the rules, and institutes of the different orders; by which means those small convents in the country, which are prohibited by the Bulls, and which, besides beino- totally useless to religion, are a source of scandal to the people, and of impoverishment to a very valuable class of the community, the villagers, will be at length abolished. The funds arising from this source ought, whatever may be the clamors of the Court of Rome, to be appropriated to beneficent institutions, as is the case at Venice and other places. There are various religious orders who live solely by beo-o-ing alms ; such as the Capuchins, the Observan- tines, the Barefooted Carmelites, the Augustimans, and others, who, though originally mendicants, scarcely retain 'any trace of their'profession, beyond the mere name and the pontifical privilege attached to it. Francis intended his disciples to live by the labor of their hands, and only to implore the aids of charity when they found themselves unable to earn what was necessary for their subsistence. The Pope and the theologians declared, that the only labor which had been ordained FEMALE CONVENTS. 73 for them was entirely spiritual ; while the Council of Trent, departing from the strictness of their rule, gave them power, like the rest of the mendicant orders, the Capuchins and. Observantines ouly excepted, to acquire and possess property. The income of those monks must be exactly ascertained, by calculating the product arising from their masses, the charities which they re- ceive, and the profit accruing from the direction of the convents. When that has been done, their numbers must be restrained, and every species of begging, espe- ciallyin the country, forbidden, as well as all the pious frauds which they employ in the churches for making money; such as enrolment in the third order, devotion t<> the name of Jesus, to Anthony, &c. "Wherever the existing revenues are found insufficient to maintain such a number of those parasitical plants as it may have been deemed necessary to support, not- withstanding the progress of civilization, Rucellai ad- vised the Government to make up the deficiency by means of pensions. Society will thus purchase, says he, by the sacrifice of a small sum of money, a deliver- ance from the dangerous influence, both in a moral and political point of view, to when the scandalous beggary of the clergy subjects it. Besides, by giving them a pension, the Government will acquire an au- thority over them, which it never could have obtained in any other way, and will have the power to diminish theii numbers as it may deem proper, by diminishing their salaries/' RE SECRETS OF CHAPTER V. Examination of Ricci before Pius VI.— Ricci in his Diocess. — Disorders of the Dominicans.— Disputes of Ricci with the Dominicans on the subject of their Convents.— Contests with the Ex- Jesuits.— Superstition of the Sacred Heart.— Different attempts at Reform. Ricci underwent the customary examination of a bishop before Pius VI. The ceremony appears to have been very disagreeable to him, for he afterwards repeatedly complained of its humiliating nature, and of the conduct of the Court of Rome in insisting on this and similar things, to bring the bishops more com- pletely under its authority. In this examination the candidates for episcopal orders are obliged to be on their knees, in the midst of a numerous assembly, presided over by the Pope, while the examining prelates, chosen from the regular priests, ques- tion them. Ricci says : " Whoever knows the formal- ities, knows that the examiners communicate the questions beforehand, and even tell them from what author they wish the answers to be taken ; because they have no less fear of being themselves embarrass- ed, and making a sorry appearance before the assem- bly, than the examined can have ; who, if he blunder a little, is always sure of being excused." The cere mony of his consecration, as Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, took place on the 24th of June, 1780. Prato had formerly been divided from Pistoia. "At the commencement of the seventeenth century," says Ricci, "during the discussions on the dismemberment of the diocese of Pistoia, the city of Prato was scarce- ly recovered from the frightful pillage which it had suffered, when it was taken by the soldiers led by the Cardinal John de Medici, afterwards Leo X., against his country, the Republic of Florence. This Cardi- nal, who was as bad a citizen as he was a cruel in- strument of the projects of Julius II. whom he served as legate, placed himself, it is said, at a short distance from the city, whilst the soldiers assaulted it. He FEMALE CONVENTS. 75 there ran great risk of being killed by a shot from a culverin, which struck the window, from which, like another Nero, he enjoyed the frightful spectacle. Even in my time they exhibited to the curious, in the convent of Anne, near Prato, both the window and a part of the wall broken by the shot. They show also, in the middle of the court of the ancient house of the Provosts, which I afterwards used as my episcopal re- sidence, a large well, now filled up, which is recorded to have swallowed up about six hundred innocent vic- tims to the fury of the soldiers, as well women as children and old men, which the sanctity of the church, in which they had taken refuge, could not save from the massacre. Their bodies, dragged away from the precincts of the temple, had been neaped to- gether, like the flesh of the shambles, and were thrown into this horrible grave, till it became necessary has- tily to clear the place of so many carcasses, when the victor Cardinal was about to make his triumphant entry. That prince of the church, by a rare act of generosity, granted his pardon to a small number of unhappy wretches, who remained alive after that fear- ful catastrophe." Ricci had not yet gone to Pistoia, when he learned that a canon of that city had been imprisoned for robbery ; and before leaving Florence, he obtained an order from the Grand Duke, that the culprit should be shut up in his convent to do penance there. By this means he avoided a proceeding which would have been scandalous to the clergy. His first care, on arriving at Pistoia, was to employ all the means in his power to reform the Dominican nuns of the convent of Lucia. Before his time, the Bishop Alamanni had been obliged, in 1764, to take the spiritual management of the convents of Cathe- rine and Lucia at Pistoia into his own hands, on ac- count of the disorders reigning in them. He had re- ceived the express order of his Government to do so, and had obtained the consent of the College of Cardi- nals, the See of Rome being at that time vacant. He 76 SECRETS OF deemed it necessary, at the same time, to remove from the convent the Dominican monks, who had been their former directors. The nuns of Lucia were so much affected by this unexpected attack, that he never could succeed in reducing them to obedience. After his death, the Bishop Ippoliti, for four entire years la- bored in vain for the accomplishment of the same ob- ject. These unhappy victims of monachal seduction obstinately refused to listen to the authority of their pastor ; and some of them preferred giving up the sacraments altogether, to receiving them from the hands of the secular or regular clergy, whom the Bishop had marked out to administer, after the Prince had prohibited the Dominicans from approaching them. There was among them a novice who never would make her vows before the Bishop, because she would not promise obedience to any one but the Gen- eral of the Dominicans. When Ricci complained at Rome of these disorders to the Pope, and avowed his suspicions that the monks alone were the cause of so much obstinacy on the part of the nuns : " Can you doubt it ?" said Pius VI. ; and immediately afterwards he uttered a violent sally against the General of the Dominicans, whom he painted as a troublesome and obstinate man. He charged Ricci to assure the nuns, that it was his for- mal intention to leave them, for the future, subject to their bishop, and not to the friars ; and that they should have no scruple, on account of the obedience which they had promised to their General. " Fortified by this pontifical authority, the new Bish- op gradually brought the Dominican nuns under his jurisdiction ; made them accept a new confessor, and even prevailed upon the novice to make her vows. He confesses, however, that there was need of constant vigilance to guard against the underhand intriguing of the Dominican friars. Jn Prato, he abridged their power, and made them submit to his episcopal jurisdiction ; but the affront which wounded them to the quick, was an order FEMALE CONVENTS. 77 which he issued, that no friar should go into a convent of nuns, unless solely in case of necessity, and always with surplice and stole, to administer the sacraments. They used every effort to obtain the repeal of that order. The Jesuits, though abolished as a body, still kept up their intrigues. With that zealous and pertinacious sect Ricci had a violent dispute, on a superstitious ob- servance, called, the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesiis ! That order had always been very zealous in the cause of candidates. Pope Clement XIII. had supported them ; but Clement XIV. utterly destroyed their plans. The Jesuits at Pistoia had sounded Ricci on his inclinations with respect to this, their favorite devotion, while he was at Rome. A man at Prato had wished to establish an annual festival, to found a perpetual mass, and to obtain indulgences in honor of the Sacred Heart. Cardinal Rezzonico granted the recmest, and sent a brief to that effect to Prato, whence it was returned by the Pro-vicar to Ricci, who kept it in his hands, without giving it currency. The first abortive attempt was followed by a sec- ond, after he had taken possession of his bishopric. In April, 1781, he was at Prato on occasion of the solemn benediction of several bells destined for the ca- thedral of that city. When he came into the church, and at the very moment of commencing the office pre- scribed for that superstitious ceremony, he was warned that it was intended to deceive him ; but there was no time to inform him in what the snare laid against him consisted. Accustomed to the intrigues of priests, he promised that lie would not let himself be surprised; ;iikI suspecting that sonic fraud lurked under the re- quest that lie should baptize the largest of the bells in honor of Jesus ( 'hrist, lie refused to do it. The pre- text be alleged was, that as all hells were dedicated to God, then: was no need of a particular ceremony for that, and he gave the hell the name of Stephen, the patron of the town. \\ hen the office was concluded, he went to admire the workmanship of the new hells, 7* 78 SECRETS OF in order to have time to examine them ; and he dis- covered under the garland of flowers with which the principal be]] was rather covered, than ornamented, the inscription In honor em SS. Cordis Jesu. At the sight of this he could not contain his indignation ; he caused the inscription to be effaced, and complained of it to the Grand Duke. For this recourse to the civil power, Ricci was bitterly blamed by his enemies, and those of social order. That devotion to the Sacred Heart caused Ricci still farther trouble. Salvi, a man deeply imbued with the spirit of the suppressed order, exposed throughout Pra- to, his native place, where he was Prior of the church of Notre Dame, pictures of the Sacred Heart, which he surrounded with rich ornaments, calculated to keep up the superstition of the people. He added indulgences, obtained from Pius VI. in favor of this new devotion, although it had not been previously verified and recog- nised for authentic by the Bishop, as the Council of Trent requires. Finally, he openly supported a frater- nity illegally formed and introduced into Tuscany, in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. " Every body knows," says Ricci, " and fatal expe- rience has too fully proved it during the troubles which still agitate Europe, how many machinations the Je- suits set on foot, under the protection of Pius VI. to re- establish their society. They imagined that this doc- trine of the Sacred Heart would be the most proper centre and point of union for all who should labor to that end ; with this view, they neglected no means, no artifice, to promote and establish this worship. The Popes before Clement XIII. had generally opposed it on religious grounds. After the suppression of the Jesuits, this superstition made little progress, on account of the vigilance and firmness of Clement XIV. ; and in all probability, had that pontiff lived longer,* it would have been buried with the suppressed order. " But God," * The historian of the Life of Ricci here inserts a note which has for its object to prove the authenticity of the letters of Ganganelli. The FEMALE CONVENTS. 79 says Ricci, " wished to try his church, in order to pu- rify it, and has permitted that this devotion of the Sa- cred Heart should revive in all its force under Pius YI. who scattered indulgences in handfuls on the Cordi- coles; the worshippers of the Sacred Heart." Salvi was their apostle at Prato. He was cited to Florence by the Senator Bartolini, to answer for his conduct, but that cunning Jesuit seduced this magis- trate from his duty, and Leopold had to reprimand him, and order him to apologise to Ricci for his conduct. The Bishop treated him on this occasion with the great- est attention, but could not win the obstinate heart of the Jesuit. The city of Prato was entirely under the influence of the monks. The Jesuits and the Dominicans exer- cised there the most absolute power, the former direct- ing the education of the youth of all the principal fa- milies of the neighborhood, and the latter managing the female convents. The Bishop was considered as little more than the chief personage of the place ; his spiritual authority was nothing. In this situation of things, Ricci, jealous of his power, and especially so when religion and morality demanded its rigorous ex- ertion, could hardly remain long without a dispute with tlie monks. Their first difference originated in the Domination of a Dominican confessor and. preacher, in which dispute Ricci saw himself overcome by the want Abbe de Belgarde thus expresses himself on this curious point of literary history, in two letters to Ricci, written in 1776: " 1 hive you seen the letters of Ganganelli ? there are a good number of them addressed to the late Messieurs Lauri and Cerati. You and M. Martini ought to have read them. You are, of course, aware that there arc some persons who throw doubt upon the authenticity of these letters ; some through passion and interest, as the cx-Jcsuits and infidels; and others through a fasti. lions spirit of criticism. For myself, I have not the slightest doubt on the subject. Independent of the evidence derived from the work itself, 1 have seen in the original, the letters of many persons of authority in Rome, of which transcripts had been furnished, which, in Other points loo, prove the truth of this publication." In another letter, tbeAbbede Belgarde adds, " I have the satisfaction of knowing, that persona who have the best means of judging, particularly the Cardinal ■ 1. Berni, regard the letters of Clement XIV. as authentic." 80 SECRETS OP of discretion in the Vi car-general, who took part with his opponents. For a century and half previous to this, the total corruption of the Dominican order had been a matter of scandal throughout Tuscany. The spiritual direc- tion which those monks had of the female convents had degenerated into the basest profligacy. A peti- tion, dated 1642, still exists, in which the Gonfalonier of that period, and other representatives of the people of Pistoia, address the reigning Duke, praying for a reformation in the convents of the Dominicans of Lu- cia and Catherine. Ferdinand, however, did nothing, and the honor was reserved for Leopold. Two nuns of the convent of Catherine of Pistoia, who had exposed the execrable principles and doctrines of the Dominican monks, their directors, gave rise to his wise reforms. They proved how much the profit which the monks, and above all, the Provincial and the Confessor drew from their convent, as well as from others, hurt the temporal interests of those religious houses, and were gradually ruining them. Tbey gave equally strong proofs of the spiritual ruin produced by the familiarity of the monks with the nuns, and the easy communication which they had with them. They ate and drank with their favorite sisters, remained alone with them in their cells whenever they chose, and whenever they could find a pretext, slept during the night in the cloister. Long habit had in fact so ac- customed them to the greatest license, that scarcely any respect for public decency remained. We here insert the declaration of the nuns of Catherine of Pistoia, which was presented to the Grand Duke Leopold in the year 1775. " Instead of allowing us to remain in our.simplicity, and protecting our innocence, they teach us, both by word and action, all kinds of indecencies. They fre- quently come to the vestry, of which they have almost all the keys ; and as there is a grate there, they com- mit a thousand indecorous acts. " If they get an opportunity of coming into the con- FEMALE CONVENTS. 81 vent under any feigned pretext, they go and stay alone in the chambers of those who are devoted to them. They are all of the same stamp ; and they are not ashamed to take advantage of the circumstance of the visitation for those purposes. They utter the worst expressions, saying that we should look upon it as a great happiness that we have the power of satisfying our appetites without being exposed to the annoyance of children. They say that when this life is ended, all is ended ; and they add that even Paul, who wrought with bis own hands, should teach us ; and that we should not hesitate to take our pleasures. "They allow every kind of indecency to go on in the parlour. Though often warned by us, they do not break off the dangerous intimacies that are formed ; and hence it has often occurred, that men who have contrived to get the keys have come into the convent during the night, which they have spent in the most dissipated manner. They also suffer the nuns to ne- glect the sacraments : they never think of introducing the practice of mental prayer, and they preach nothing but the pleasures of this life. The sisters who live ac- cording to their maxims are extolled by them and in- dulged in every extravagance ; and the others must either go with the stream, heedless of conscience, or live in a state of perpetual warfare, as is actually the case with us now. " This is the real truth. We the undersigned attest it, without passion, and on our conscience. " Anna Teresa Merlini, Madre di Consiglio. " Rosa Peraccini, Madre di Consiglio. "Flavia Peraccini, Madre di Consiglio. " Gaetana Poggiali. " Candida, Gioconda Botti. " Maria, Clotilda Bambi." The intercourse of the monks and nuns, according to Ricci, was arrived to such a pitch of infamous licen- tiousness, that topics of the most disgusting nature formed the usual subject of their conversation ; while the greater part of the sisters deprived themselves of 82 SECRETS OP their money and every thing else to satisfy the rapacity of their lovers, performed for them the most servile of- fices, and even sometimes went by the name of their wives. A person who had been in the service of the Dominicans, told the Bishop many other things of a still worse kind, and that his principal employment had been that of a confidential messenger in their love-in- trigues. Leopold, already well informed of this con- dition of the convents, to obtain still farther information, had the fab Helens of the establishment examined, and found every thing he had before heard confirmed. He next had all the nuns themselves examined by the Lieu- tenant of Police ; and seeing the necessity of some prompt and vigorous measure, appointed Bishop Ala- manni to take without delay the spiritual superintend- ence of all the Dominican convents of Pistoia, and pro- hibited the Dominican monks, on pain of imprison- ment, from approaching them. While Ricci was Vicar of the Archbishop of Florence, it was reported to him that in a convent of that diocese where the nuns all slept in a common dormitory, the two last beds were for the father confessor and his lay brother, that they might have them in case of being called to assist any sick sister during the night. Alamanni resided at Florence, but, though at a dis- tance from his diocese and eighty years old, he ren- dered an exact account of every thing which occurred, and gave minute directions on every occasion of diffi- culty or doubt. Neither his gentleness, however, nor his kind feelings for the nuns, could overcome their pride and obstinacy. They constantly refused to re- gard him as their superior, or to show the least confi- dence in the confessors he appointed. They asserted that, by acting in a contrary manner, they should have incurred the excommunication of Pius V.; and the dread of this was so strong with many, that one who was dangerously ill at Lucia, never requested the sa- craments. With some, this was the effect of igno- rance ; but in many, it arose from vicious passions and the desire of their safe indulgence. The monks, the FEMALE CONVENTS. 83 nuns, and even the Cardinal-protector of the order, omitted no opportunity of assuring them, either by let- ters or secret emissaries, that if they continued firm, the tempest which menaced them would in a little time gradually be dispersed. By this means the nuns were confirmed in their obstinate resistance, in which they persevered. A short time after the death of Clement XIV. in 1774, Alamanni addressed the Court of Rome to obtain the power and means for reducing the Dominicans of Pistoia under his authority. The Cardinals, assembled in conclave, granted his request, and confided to him a commission for governing the convents of Lucia and Catherine, and requested him to communicate such farther information as might be useful to the future Pope. He satisfied their demand, and added to the de- tails already given, a lively picture of the abuse of au- thority of which both the priors and confessors in the convent of Pistoia were guilty. The nuns, says Alamanni, nearly all declare the same thing respecting the dissoluteness and libertinism of their directors, of their materialism in doctrine, and the brutality of their sentiments ; and that he had in a great degree a personal experience of the truth of these as- sertions, as he had been charged with their spiritual administration. In the mean time the disorders increased at Lucia. The nuns uniformly united in opposing the Bishop, in refusing the sacraments, and remaining without a su- perior; since, after the death of the one who had go- verned them according to the direction of the Domi- nicans, they were determined to elect no other without their co-operation. Tiny believed, or pretended to be- lieve, that the provisionary power given by the Cardi- dinals to their Bishop to replace the monks, was cither supposititious or insufficient. At Catherine, the demon of discord reigned without restraint. Those who had been reclaimed were regarded as guiltyof apostacy, as schismatics, and excommunicated. The party opposed to them was, although less numerous, the most lurbu- SECRETS OF lent and determined. The threats of poisoning or stran- gling the complainants were nearly every day renewed, and no authority availed to subdue the pride of those miserably depraved nuns. The actual condition of those persons appears from the report which the three churchwardens signed and presented to Leopold, and from a letter of one of the nuns to the Rector Camporini. " The Prior and the Confessor take the liberty of going, whenever they please, into the vestry to con- verse with their favorites ; whereas, according to the tenor of the Bull, they should not even communicate with them ad loquendum bonum : they have parties of pleasure there, and eat with the nuns. One time, on Easter day, the other nuns going in a body to divert themselves there, surprised two other monks along with them, each passing his time with his favorite nun. " The said Prior and Confessor, when they come into the convent to visit the sick, do not go to them recto tramite, as the Bulls direct, but wherever they please, and even alone with the nuns into their cells, and they walk together in the garden. " If they are attending on any nuns that are dying, they eat and sleep in the monastery, which is pro- hibited, and they eat with whom they please, even with the sextonesses. These irregularities are imputed not only to the Prior and Confessor, but to all those destined from time to time for these employments, who are guilty of con- stant ill conduct. In a letter of Flavia Peraccini to Comparini, written August, 1775, she thus expresses herself: "I learned yesterday morning that the fratesses, monkesses, had a letter last Friday from the Cardinal Protector of the order, in which he desires them to beseech the Lord to give them patience ; that he would do all in his power for them, but that they should not be in a hurry, for the affair would be tedious. At all events, both they and the monks keep up their hopes, and make every effort to prevent any FEMALE CONVENTS. S5 change. No one can have any idea of the extent of the intrigues of the monks ; and the devices to which they have recourse to secure themselves, are astonishing - . " Every time I think of the plan of the Provincial to make ns all communicate, and then to make us all sign a declaration that we attended the sacraments, and that every thing was done in good order, and thus make liars of us, I am perfectly unable to restrain my astonishment." The reader is now well acquainted with the Domi- nican nuns and the monks their seducers. It would be useless to make any observation on the interest which one of the princes of the church testified so openly for them, as well as the high protection which he promised them to aid them in resuming, as soon as possible, their claustral amours, and returning to their libertine habits, against the will of their Prince and their Bishop ; of those who were charged, as they say, by divine right, to oblige them to live in a way the most useless or most innocuous to society. Some letters of the nuns of Catherine of Pistoia, prove how far the immodesty of the refractory nuns, and of the monks their paramours, went. The former openly threatened the lives of such of the sisters as had ven- tured to reveal that tissue of debauchery, and to call on the Government to re-establish order and good morals. In May, 1775, Marianna Santini, Prioress of Cathe- rine, wrote to her diocesan, Alamanni, to say that she and her sisters submitted themselves to him uncondi- tionally, and promised every thing that he required of them, '• except a change of sentiment, as we are deter- mined to die rather than live out of our holy order. The greater part of my nuns arc determined to go into Bome other monastery of the order, and there is no other course to adopt. — Ours is a single will, most free and resolute, which will always make us adhere immutably to what we freely choose in the act of our solemn profession." The complainants presented a petition to the Vicar 8 86 SECRETS OF of Bishop Alamanni, praying that he would deliver them from their turbulent companions. " The poor nuns of Catherine of Pistoia salute the Vicar, and entreat him, by the bowels of Jesus Christ, to remove five nuns and two converses, lay sisters, who oppose the resolutions formed by his Royal Highness ; otherwise there will result great mischief. They never cease to ill-treat the complainants by words, and they threaten to come to acts. We conceal ourselves through fear. Complainants know not what to do, whether they should quit the convent to save their lives. They pray you to adopt some measures before evening, or, as they have said, they will go out, &c. — Anna Teresa Merlini — Rosa Peraccini — Maria Caterina Rossi — Candida Botti — Anna Luisa Saccardi — Gsetana Poggiali." June, 1775, they wrote to the Bishop Alamani him- self: " You must be already acquainted with the treat- ment that we experienced yesterday from Mother Ganucci, that is, her calling one of us a fool, because a sigh escaped her at dinner, in so loud a voice as to be heard at a great distance. She then, after dinner, called us jades and audacious wretches, and threatened to have us put to death. La Biagiola and La Campioni are always planning to do us michief, and to poison us. We who know the sort of persons they arc, and their little fear of God, live in terror all day and night. — They laughed at the communications made by you ; and said quite loud in the garden — pardon us, and do not impute it to want of respect — that you were a knave and a dolt, that wanted to play the braggadocio, because you knew your power would soon be at an end, &c. Yesterday morning they read a book at the table, in which it is said, that the Emperor Charles IV. exempted the monks from the power of princes, and that they are only subject to the Empire, and in spirit- uals immediately to the Pope." Maria Caterina Rossi, when calling for a new prior- FEMALE CONVENTS. 87 ess for the convent of Catherine, thus expressed herself on the subject of the refractory nuns : " Suffice it to say, that even in places requiring silence, they presume to bawl out at the bottom of the doors, even during- the hours of repose ; and say that we put ourselves in the hands of the Devil, when we put ourselves in those of the priests ; and, finally, threaten to strangle us." Anna Merlini wrote to the Bishop : '•'The monks, as well as the nuns, have obtained, what they desired ; they wished for the ruin of the monastery, and they will see it. As soon as possession was taken by the Vicar, the Provincial went to Flor- ence, and the Prior to Rome ; for if they could do nothing- else, they would succeed in having us dis- placed, and that the Confessor himself said to more than one of us. They commenced a suit at Florence, and at Rome. The lay-brother belonging to the last Provincial remained here to give all the news to the nuns, and to extract from them every thing they knew, to communicate it to his superiors." Alamanni in vain addressed the Court of Rome ; in vain did he call for aid, and paint in the liveliest colors his affliction at finding his power altogether in- sufficient for the difficulties of the times. He obtained not even an answer. In June, 1775, he wrote to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars; and in July, to Cardinal Ca- rafia ; but the same silence continued. In the mean- while, the nuns lauffhed at the menaces, as well as the exhortations oi their pastor. Alamanni wrote again, in September, to Cardinal Torrigiani, his old friend. He told him all the anxiety of his mind, and how much lie Buffered in seeing himself so deserted; but the only consolation he received from Torrigiani was an assur- ance, that he pitied his situation, and that he would do all in his power to bring the subject again into con- sideration. "It is not," says Ricci, "that Alamanni knew not in wh.ii manner, or to what extent he might use his authority; but he was not willing to hurt the 89 SECRETS OF prejudices either of his flock, which was favorable to Rome, or of the nobles of Pistoia, the daughters of whom peopled the two refractory convents. Nor was he willing to embroil himself in a quarrel with the See of Rome. He communicated to the Grand Duke the motives for this restraint; and the latter, who loved him ardently, assured him that he had no personal reason to fear either the intrigues of the monks, or the snares of the Nuncio. Finding that the Cardinal Torrigiani obtained nothing from the Congregation of Bishops, Alamanni prayed him to address ^Pius VI. himself. Torrigiani did so, and the month following he returned Alamanni an account of the Pope's reply. " The Holy Father," he said, "was not willing, in any way, to ap- prove of the innovations illegally-introduced into the two convents ; and especially the design of the Tuscan Government to take away the direction of the convents from all the regular orders, the abuse of which the Pope declared he believed to be dictated by calumny." The Bishop of Pistoia died in the same month. Ippoliti, his successor, the compatriot of the refrac- tory nuns, and the relation even of many of them, hoped to overcome them by patience and kindness ; but he was no more successful than Alamanni. He succeeded also as little in obtaining any assistance from the Congregation of Bishops ; till at length the disorders increased to such a height, that Leopold himself interposed his authority. Intending to pursue more general measures, in the hope that they would be more efficacious, he addressed a circular to the Tuscan bishops, desiring them to demand of the See of Rome the removal of the convents from the direction of the monks, and their submission to the spiritual government of the ordinaries. This measure had been constantly desired from the time of Cosmo I., and the Grand Duke conceived the project of effecting it. The circulars were sent in 1776. The bishops who receiv- ed them, were not ignorant of the excesses which the Prince wished to extirpate. They knew also that the direction of the convents by the monks, was in direct FEMALE CONVENTS. opposition to all the reforms which he intended to in- troduce for the good of religion throughout the States ; and they had, consequently, no excuse for resisting his orders. But the Avocat Fei, the charge-d'affaires for Tuscany, was not a fit negotiator in such a business. Of narrow views, blindly attached to the Court of Rome, and the devoted friend and admirer of P. Mamachi, he permitted himself to be blinded by the pontifical govern- ment. Although, therefore, he pretended to assist the reform, he rendered his concessions of no avail, by the conditions with which it was burdened, namely, that every Tuscan bishop should give an account of the convents, the spiritual direction of which was in his hands, in order that a proof might thus be afforded of the necessity of the transfer. This was the true method to carry on the disputes without end. The Bishop Ippoliti imagined that nothing should prevent the renewal of his complaints, or his demands to have all the convents committed to his power. But he soon discovered his mistake : the Court of Rome grants every thing to submission, and by favor ; nothing to justice, to right and demand. Ippoliti received, in January, 1777, a letter from the Pope, in which he not only refused what the prelate had requested, but heaped reproaches upon him for having recalled an affair to the recollection of his Holiness, which he hoped had been forgotten since the death of Alamanni. The Uishop is, moreover, especially rebuked with hav- ing contributed to the execution of the plan of the ( J rand Duke to take the direction of the convents from the hands of the regulars, a plan, it is said, opposed to the canons, and hurtful to religion and the monastic orders. The only attempt at softening the refusal of this, and Leopold's request, was the putting of a few neglected and altogether vicious convents into the bands of some Tuscan bishops. Ippoliti had another ray of hope; but he had too much good sense to be a favorite with the See of Rome, and the only concessions he could obtain, was a per mission f<> transfer the refractory nuns of Catherine to 8* 90 SECRETS OF the convent of Clement of Prato, which was under the direction of the Dominicans, and where they were re- ceived in triumph. Still greater disorders than those which had been supposed to exist at Pistoia, were soon discovered at Prato. Ricci had his attention directed towards the latter by the disgraceful incontinency of two of the nuns. All the evil which existed was attributable to the Dominican monks. For many years, says the Bishop, those women lived plunged in the most infa- mous debauchery. The name of the one was Catherine Irene Buonamici, sprung from a noble family in Prato, aged fifty years ; the other, Clodesin de Spighi, of equally noble descent, aged thirty-eight years. Every means had been employed by the Dominicans to pre- vent any of the circumstances from transpiring. When Ricci, however, received the government of the diocese, and Vincent Majocchi was appointed confessor to the convent of Catherine, the dreadful situation of its mem- bers became exposed to public notice. At the feast of Pentecost, Majocchi, more scrupulous than his prede- cessors, refused those two nuns absolution. In an in- stant the affair became known abroad. The Vicar of Prato, Lorenzo Palli, was informed of it, and Ricci himself hearing it reported, sent to obtain the details from the Vicar. The latter answered, that the nuns believed neither the sacraments of the church, nor the eternity of another life ; that they denied certain criminal actions to be sins, and especially those of the flesh. Not content with what he had done, Majocchi went himself to Pistoia, to give the Bishop, and the Penitencier of the cathedral, who was the uncle of Spighi, an account of what had passed ; but so op- pressed was he with the difficulties which presented themselves to a reform, that, notwithstanding the re- monstrances of Ricci, he resigned his office. Ricci wished to do nothing in this affair without the concurrence of the Dominicans themselves; but the rudeness and obstinacy with which they replied to his overture, are almost past belief. The Bishop, however, FEMALE CONVENTS. 91 had to congratulate himself afterwards that no com- promise took place, and that he was left to pursue his reformation to the utmost. The Grand Duke, having been informed by him of what had occurred, began by- giving the most severe orders that no communication should take place between the convent of Catherine and the Dominican monks. He also collected what- ever documents might tend to prove the complicated baseness of the Dominicans, and that also of the Domi- nicans at Pistoia in 1774, and which might enable him to examine the affair in all its ramifications. He sub- mitted the measures which had been taken, two years after, 1776, to the Court of Rome, to obtain for the bishops the direction of the convents, but which mea- sures the intrigues of the Dominicans at Rome totally destroyed. The monks perceived the danger of their situation, and could discover no other method of lessening it, than that of exciting the people in their favor against the Government. For this purpose they prepared a nun of the convent of Vincent, at Pistoia, and obliged her to feign an ecstacy before the shrine which contains the body of St. Catherine. When this was done, a report was spread that the city was menaced, by this celestial sign, with some dreadful scourge. Instantly tin; church of the Recollets was filled with women, thinking (he world was at an end, and demanding con- fession ; nor was the tumult appeased till it was said that the misfortune only threatened the children of Saint Dominic. The disorders discovered at Prato were only the sequel of those which the Government had rooted out of fin; convents of Pistoia. In two letters of Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of Catherine of Pistoia, to Compa- ring rector of the episcopal seminary in the same city; th«' nun relates what passed before her eyes in her own convent, what had passed there before she wrote, and wh.it still continued to take place in other convents, particularly at Prato. u ft would require both time and memory to recollect 92 SFXRETS OF what has occurred during the twenty-four years that 1 have had to do with monks, and all that I have heard tell of them. Of those who are gone to the other world I shall say nothing ; of those who are still alive, and have little decency of conduct, there are very many, among whom there is an ex-provincial named Ballendi ; then Donati, Pacini, Buzzaccherini, Calvi, Zoratti, Big- liacci, Guidi, Miglietti, Verde, Bianchi, Ducci, Serafini, Bolla, Nera di Lucca, Quaretti. With the exception of three or four, all that I ever knew, alive or dead, are of the same character ; they have all the same maxims and the same conduct. They are on more intimate terms with the nuns than if they were married to them. " It is the custom now, that, when they come to visit any sick sister, they sup with the nuns, they sing, dance, play, and sleep in the convent. It is a maxim of theirs, that God has forbidden hatred, but not love ; and that the man is made for the woman, and the woman for the man. They teach us to amuse our- selves, saying, that Paul said the same, who wrought with his own hands. They deceive the innocent, and even those that are most circumspect ; and it would need a miracle to converse with them and not to fall. " The priests are the husbands of the nuns, and the lay-brothers of the lay-sisters. In the chamber of one of those I have mentioned, a man was one day found ; he fled, but very soon after they gave him to us as confessor extraordinary. How many bishops are there in the Papal States who have come to the knowledge of some disorder, have held examinations and visita- tions, and yet could never remedy it ; because the monks tell us that those are excommunicated who reveal what passes in the order ! l Poor creatures ! said I to an English provincial, they think they are leav- ing the world to escape danger, and they only meet with greater. Our fathers and mothers have given us a good education, and here we learn the Ave Maria backwards.' He knew not what reply to make to me. God is my witness, I speak without passion. The FEMALE CONVENTS. 93 monks have never done any thins; to me personally to make me dislike them; but I will say that so iniqui- tous a race as the monks no where exists. Bad as the seculars are, they do not at all come up to them ; and the art of the monks with the world and their superi- ors baffled description. " When they notify the death of a nun, they make a panegyric on her in the circular letter, to show that they know how to direct these poor graceless creatures ! God only knows if they are not utterly lost. How ill they are attended when on the bed of death ! That, indeed, is camaval-time. •• When they gave us the holy-water every year, they threw every thing, even the beds, into disorder. What a racket they used to make ! One time they washed Father Manni's face, and dressed him like a nun. In short, it was a perpetual scene of amuse- ment : — comedies and conversation for ever. Every monk who passed by on his way to the chapter they found some means of showing into the convent, and intreated a sick sister to confess herself. Everlasting scandal about husbands, — of those who had stolen the mistress of such a one; how others had avenged themselves in the chapter ; and how they would not have forgiven even in death. " Do not suppose that this is the case in our con- vent alone. It is just the same at Lucia, at Prato, at Pisa, .it Perugia ; and I have heard things that would astonish you. Every where it is the same, every where the same disorders, every where the same abuses prevail. Let the superiors suspect as they may, they do not know even the smallest part of the enormous wickedness that goes on between the monks and the nuns." The next day the Nun Peraccini, who had been interrogated respecting Friar Buzzacchcrini of Lucia, replied by flu- following letter. These details had been required of her because it was known that that monk had been senl as confessor to the nuns of Vincent of Pistoia, where it had been ascertained, the conies- 94 SECRETS OF sors were in the habit of staying every clay till midnight, to the knowledge of the whole town. " With respect to Buzzaccherini, he acted just like the rest, sitting up late, diverting himself, and letting the usual disorders go on. There were several nuns who had love affairs. His own mistress was Odaldi of Lucia, who used to send him continual treats ; and he was in love with the daughter of our factor, of whom they were very jealous here. He too, like the other monks, used to send us his dirty linen. He ruined poor Cancellieri, who was sextoness, for he was always asking something from her, and almost every morning she had to dress him some nice dish. They are all alike." Some years ago the nuns of Vincent, in consequence of the extraordinary passion they had for Father Lupi and Father Borghigiani, were divided into two parties, one calling themselves Le Lupe, the other Le Borg- higiani. He 'who made the greatest noise in Lucia was Donati, but I believe he is now at Rome. Brandi too was also in great vogue. He is now prior at Gemignano. " It is true, that the temporal is not oppressive, but the nun who is always giving to the friar, how does she observe her vow of poverty ? — At Vincent, which passes for a sanctuary, they also have their lovers." The direction of the female convents by the regu- lars, usually produced corruption of morals. In a letter written from Rome, October, 17S1, by the Advo- cate Zanobetti to Bishop Ricci, he hopes that it will end with the general adoption of withdrawing the nuns from the spiritual direction of the monks; "espe- cially in the states, where, some years ago, it was neees- sary to raze from the foundations one of men be- longing to the barefooted Carmelites, the other of women of the same order, which were joined, and in which, by means of subterranean passages, they led the ordinary life of men and women." Zanobetti had been five years employed in the office of assessor of the Inquisition, and knew much more about monks and nuns than the Bishop of Pistoia. FEMALE CONVENTS. 95 CHAPTER VI Examination of the Nuns ofPrato. — Obstinacy of the Pope. — Ricci's visit to La Montagne. — Improvements in that district. — Reform of ecclesias- tical studies." The nuns of Lucia, in Pistoia, had voluntarily sub- mitted themselves to their new pastor. Weariness, ennui, and principally their being deprived of the sup- port of the convent of Catherine, had induced them to believe that no efforts they could make, would bring back the monks. This was not the case at Prato. The pride and madness of the Dominicans, opposed to the firmness of the Prince and the Bishop, drove tilings every day to greater extremity. The resorts of cunning remained, and a monk attempted to employ them. At the period when he was least expected, Calvi, a Dominican, arrived at Prato, authorized by an order from the Grand Duke to co-operate with Ricci in the examination of the existing abuses. He had been warmly recommended to the Prince by Ser- atti, his secretary; who hoped, by this measure, to moid rate the zeal of Ricci. But Calvi spoiled all, by acting liis part improperly; and Ricci, informed of his conduct, immediately made Leopold acquainted with his character, and had him recalled. \ Servite, named 1*. Baldi, had been commissioned by Ricci to examine the nuns and boarders of the con- vent of Catherine. During this affair, every one con- nected in any way with the Dominicans, was in the greatest agitation. " It is more easy to imagine, than to describe the fury of the monks and their adherents, ;ii Prato. Tumults and secret machinations were formed, to free the accused nuns, and destroy every proof of their guilt. These turbulent monks had also B powerful assistanl in the Papal Nuncio for Tus- cany. He afforded them aid and protection, because 90 SECRETS OF he knew that their dishonor would fall on the Court of Rome. He defended and prohibited the ex-Jesuits, whom his court also supported, because it saw that if it would continue to be a court, it must not allow these vigorous satellites of its despotism to be crushed. June, 1781, Ricci wrote to the minister Seratti : " The Dominicans are in motion ; the Nuncio does not relax in his efforts to save them. It is not at all unlikely that he will endeavor to have the cause brought before himself, under the pretext of having received a special commission from his court, and in the hope, that the affair going on tediously, according to the usual policy of the Holy See, people will at last get tired, and the matters remain in statu quo. " They say at Rome, to defend the monks, that the two nuns are mad ; but, up to the present hour, no one has ever taken them for such. Besides, Buonamici was prioress of her society ten or twelve years ago. She and Spighi were, in 1775 or 1776, the one mistress, the other second mistress of the novices. Finally, they have been always admitted to partake of the sacraments, and that alone is enough to condemn the monks." As protector of the licentiousness of the monks, the Nuncio thought he might at least partake of their less scandalous pleasures. In a letter of the Abbe de Bellegarde, one of the heads of the Jansenists at Utrecht, to the Bishop of Pistoia, March, 1782, he com- plained of this unclerical conduct : " What a scandal," replied the zealous Abbe, " to see monks at Florence giving in their convents, comedies, masqued balls, &c. ; and to see the Nuncio of his Holiness present at them !" But nothing could damp the courage or zeal of Ricci. The examination was continued, and the report of it was sent to Leopold, who commissioned his charge d'affaires at the Court of Rome to bring the subject before the Pope with all diligence. The Grand Duke testifiedlhs impatience for a reply to his demands, by sending a courier extraordinary, who was not to quit Rome without an answer. The FEMALE CONTENTS. 07 result was expected as anxiously by many of the nuns, as by Leopold ; and the examination into the abuses of the convent of Clement was stopped, till it should be known. In the mean time, fresh proofs were every day sent to Ricci of the licentiousness of the monks and nuns. The public places and the shops of Prato resounded with reports of their excesses ; and there was not a female who had been on an errand to the convent, who had not some anecdote to tell of their conduct. The boarders bore the same testimony to the barefaced vices of the nuns; and one mentioned that she had seen a play of Goldoui's, "La Vedova Sealtra," performed much better by the nuns of Cathe- rine than at the theatre. The Confessor was the most conspicuous of the spectators, and the performance was followed by conduct not fit to be related. Ricci had taken every precaution in his power to stop the evil of this public scandal, but in vain ; and he was obliged at last to have recourse to sending the two accused nuns to Florence. This was tbe more ary, as the sisters had been seized with the spirit of proselytism, and, having lost the opportunity of spreading their opinions through the convent, they made an effort to corrupt the persons appointed to at- tend them in their confinement. Before their depart- ure from his diocese, Ricci had them again examined, together with their companions, and made them sign their confessions in a formal manner before the proper legal authorities. What was most remarkable, was this, that Buonamif i, in making her deposition, kept adding explanations of the most indelicate nature, to develop the system of impiety and mysticism which had led her into error. She and Spighi were sent to Floren< e by night in separate carriages, attended by a priest, a layman, and an aged female: they were put into the Hospital des ' where their l »< ■ 1 1 • i \ ior tranquil and settled. Ricci n a full account of the wretched men- tal condition of the unfortunate namici ■ at natural ability, and had com- 9 98 SECRETS OF posed several pieces of poetry of considerable merit. She had read Voltaire and Rousseau, and had stored her mind with their opinions. But her understanding had been chiefly perverted by the corruption of her manners. Imbued with both the impurities and the errors of the Gnostics, she began to make converts of her companions to her own ideas, but was contented with their becoming accomplices in her licentious con- duct without penetrating farther into the mysteries of her system. Spighi, on the contrary, she believed to be more capable of comprehending her whole scheme of doctrine ; but the latter was of an inferior mind to her teacher, and was not equally able, when examined. to elude the questions which were intended to lay open their conduct and opinions. Buonamici had sufficient subtlety and knowledge of the scriptures to torment her examiner, Longinelli, who afterwards acknowledged that there were many of her sophisms put so inge- niously, that at the time he was unable properly to combat them. Ricci said, "it is impossible to consider the frightful errors into which these deluded women had fallen, without horror." The holiest rites of reli- gion had been subjected by them to the most disgusting obscenities ; every doctrine of scripture-was interpreted by them so as to authorize some shameful indulgence ; and they pretended that for whatever they did or be- lieved, they had the special illumination of the Holy Spirit. The Bishop of Pistoia remitted to Rome whatever information he obtained on this important affair. At first this attention seemed to be well received, but it soon became different. Cardinal Pallavicini, the only one who had induced the Court of Rome to act at all reasonably, was obliged, on account of his health, to retire into the country, and leave the office of Secretary of State to Cardinar Rezzonico. The first indication which the latter gave of his disposition, was in his re- ply to Cardinal Corsini, who had asked him to confer upon Ricci, without delay, authority over the Dominican convents in his diocese. His answer was only virulent LLE CONVENTS. 99 abuse of the Bishop, an J of his conduct respecting the devotion of the Sacred Heart. Cardinal Rezzonico was at the head of the Jesuit faction ; the Dominican party joined it, and the league was strengthened by the common dangers and interests of both. A powerful party was thus formed against Ricci : but his resolution remained unshaken. He con- tinual to write to Rome, and to every one whom he thought able to assist him in obtaining the consent oi the I 'ope to his reformation of the convent of Catherine. His Idler to Cardinal Corsini, dated July, 1781, is as follow " What I have ascertained by means of the examin- ation held by the Inquisitor-extraordinary, fills me with horror; and the two unfortunate wretches have not <>nly con firmed what was said by the nuns and the 1 oarders, but have even, with unspeakable impudence, said still more, confessing even a most horrible abuse of tin' sacrament of the eucharist. With the exception of a Portuguese ex-jesuit, Bottillo, who conversed with them every day lor an entire summer, after they had dread y infected, I have not been able to discover with certainty any others guilty of teaching them such wicked principles; and even on him nothing can be positively fixed, except indecent acts and language. Ricci .elds, that the two nuns only sought in their re- plies to exculpate the Dominicans from the charge of being their accomplices; which is also apparent from their original examinations. We have the testimony ivia Peraccini to fill up that void in their con- ns. Taken with the information given by Buo- namici and Spighi themselves, it serves to establish irrefutably the truth of what was indeed most probable, that die confessors and priors whom they name, were the sole teachers of tie; Spiiiozisui, materialism, quiet- rid licentiousness, with which these nuns were infected." \ ! Her of Ricci to the same Cardinal, July, 1781, " The conduct pursued by so many provincials, 100 SECRETS OF priors, and confessors, in this and in other convents, would make one apprehend that the evil was in the body, and that they systematically held opinions con- trary to the law of Jesus Christ .With what con- fidence can bishops admit these men to the office of confessors, among whom we know that such evil prevails ?" The Bishop of Pistoia also wrote to the Pope, and sent him a detailed report of the principles which form- ed the doctrine maintained by the two nuns of Cathe- rine of Prato. These principles were all deduced from the answers made by tbe two nuns themselves in their examinations already given. In another letter, Ricci informs the Pope that the two nuns, who had been removed to Florence, as well as those who remained at Prato, refused to accuse any monk of their order, and that they even complained bitterly of the suspicions entertained against their con- fessors. They maintained that they had no need either of books, or of instructions, written or verbal, to form into a system the doctrines they professed, and which, they asserted, arose spontaneously in their mind. The Bishop of Pistoia added to his letter the depositions of the nuns of Catherine of that city, made in 1775, when that convent was taken from under the direction of the Dominicans, — depositions of which the subjects display the same errors as were afterwards found among the nuns of Prato, and which were ascribed to the instruc- tions and insinuations of the monks. He relates this circumstance as a new proof of what it was so import- ant to demonstrate fully, that these monks were alone guilty of all the disorders in the convent of Prato, whither they had gone to take the spiritual direction of the nuns of their order, after having perverted those oi Pistoia. In 17S1, Ricci also wrote to Vasquez, General of the order of the Augustinians, to beg of him to have Buonamicrs brother, who was under him, examined, and whom the depositions showed to have been in a very intimate relation with the convent of Prato. FEMALE CONVENTS. 10] Vasquez replied, that this monk was very simple, and i\ en scrupulous ; so much so. that he thought one time he ought to denounce his sister, for having spoken in his presence some suspicious words on the subject of religion. In the above-mentioned letter to Vasquez, Ricci says: 11 The two unfortunate wretches, and especially Buona- jjiici. have deposed, at Florence, several additional cir- cumst;:uces. and have mentioned the Dominicans as being their teachers and encouragers in that school of iniquity." The suspicions of the Bishop of Pistoia were thus completely confirmed, and there remained not the least doubt of the moral and religious depravity of the entire order o[ Dominic, — a depravity which the monks had incessantly labored to propagate, by initiating in the system of the most impious materialism, the nuns who were afterwards to minister to their sensual pleasures. This order was not the only one which had thus or- ganized licentiousness by means of false opinions. In .> letter from Signor Foggini to the Bishop of Pistoia, Rome, July, 17S1, are these words: •• f was (old yesterday, that the first seducer of this convent was a Jesuit. I know a monastery in which it used to make the nuns lift up their clothes, ng them that they thereby performed an act of virtue Because they overcome a natural repugnance." It had been falsely reported at Rome, that neither tlic General of the Dominicans, nor the Pope, who were ili" natural superiors of the nuns, had been in- formed of any thing with which they should have been made acquainted. This, it was said, was a sufficient proof that unlawful means had hecn taken to assist the usurpation of the rights and authority of the Holy Sec. Ricci, who saw ;ill the importance of such an accusa lion, [osl no time in proving that the Dominican nuns had made frequent appeals to Rome and to their supe riors. without obtaining a reply. They had especially id Pius VI., and the General Bonadois, but in vain. ra<-r " — Pray for our heretic bis/top ! He was accused of heresy, and anonymous letters were sent to him full of menaces and abuse. Nor were these threats alto- gether without meaning; for his domestics had been Bribed to admit people into his study; and he was as- sured that, on his going to his seat in the country, a conspiracy had been formed to take away his life, which design an assassin had offered to put in execu- tion for five hundred crowns. So many dangers alien- ated from him his friends and relatives. The ministers of the Grand Duke, and even his colleagues, took ad- vantage of it to oppose his designs, and to raise against him new enemies at court. Rome also entered into the conspiracy, and condemned his Catechism; but the Bishop, taking advantage of the approbation which the [nquisition had expressed respecting that of Venice, retained his Catechism in use, without taking notice of the prohibition. Leopold wished to render his reform general, and (■very where senl the same, instructions and the same orders, hut he was not always seconded and obeyed. About this time he addressed a circular to all the bishops of his states, sending them at the same time the pastoral letter of the Archbishop of Saltzburg, of June, L782. " Leopold intended," says Ricci, " to lead the people c. u i ii 1 1 1 1 te ( I to his care, gradually to remove from the forms of worship all tin' superstitious ohserv- ances thai then- own ignorance, or that of the clergy, or the a nihil ion., and avaricious spirit of the latter, had mingled with them ; and if he succeeded, he hoped to overcome the indifference of reasoners, and the incre- dulity of the learned towards religion, the natural re- sults of the gross debasement <>/' the />(>/>/(/)' Ricci was represented as lull of heresy. None of the benefits produced by the new law were acknowledged by these blind bigots ; and it was only fear which prevented their opposing its execution, when Leopold showed himself decidedly resolved to main- tain if. "When a nation," says Ricci, "has blindly submitted for ages to the domination of priests and nobles, these latter do not neglect to profit by their respective situations. Although naturally adverse to each other, they league together to attack those who put then- privileges in danger, and who endeavor to break the spell by which the people are hound." 118 SECRETS OF CHAPTER VII Ecclesiastical Assembly at Florence.— Acts passed by it. — Answers of the Bishops. The Episcopal assembly of Florence is less known out of Tuscany, than the Synod of Pistoia ; yet its history and its acts, will be interesting' to those who are desirous of knowing the principal opponents of the ecclesiastical reforms projected by Leopold. We shall add to it a few documents relative to the jurisdiction over the church which was exercised by the civil powers. They were printed during the lifetime of Leopold, and were intended to enlighten his clergy, and prepare the way for those measures to which he was desirous that they should agree, for the general welfare of the Tuscans. I. One of the seven quarto volumes which contain the acts alluded to, is entitled, "History of the Assembly of the Archbishops and Bishops of Tuscany, held at Florence in 17S7." It was printed at Florence, in 1788 ; and drawn up as well as the other six volumes, by the Abbe Reginald Tanzini. The preface contains a deplorable picture of the ignorance and servility of the Tuscan priests at that period. " The famous constitution Un igen iius," it is observed, "which encountered so much opposition in France, was received in Tuscany without the slightest objection or hesitation ; for in a synod of Pistoia held in 1721, it was placed immediately after a short confession of faith. " Not only were the Bulls of the Popes considered as so many irrevocable laws, which were not subject to the smallest explanation ; but also, all the decrees and consultations of the Romish Congregations. If a book was inserted in the Index Expurgatorius, it was a sufficient reason for ordering it to be burned, or for locking it up in some inaccessible corner, to serve as FEMALE CONVENTS. 119 food for worms, with the Koran, and writings of atheists and sceptics. " Every action, and every faulty and inconsiderate expression, which had happened to give offence to any hypocritical or ignorant female, were viewed in the light of crimes which it was proper to bring to the knowledge of the Inquisition, and to punish in a more terrible manner than ordinary offences against the laws of civil society. " The Count della Gherardesca, Archbishop of Flo- rence, with Incontrijthc able opponent of the Casuists, and even Martini, who were his successors, labored to dissipate such gross ignorance. The first had the Catechism of Montpelier translated into Italian, and distributed throughout his diocess. Rome con- demned the translation, and the prelate died of chagrin." Bishop Alamanni exerted himself in the same way to diffuse information through Pistoia and Prato. "The ignorance in that diocess was so deep-rooted and scan- dalous, that many of the priests not only did not under- stand, but could not even read Latin." Alamanni's vicar, win) bad the character of being the most learned person in his diocess, warmly opposed the plan of insti- tuting a theological professorship, under pretence "that it was dangerous to ir the young clergy to investi- gate the evidences of religion, and become acquainted with the arguments which had been employed in attacking it." It whs (lie doctrine of Probabilism with which Alamanni had to contend ; and which he resisted suc- cessfully, though not without much disagreement, by opposing to it the morality of Concina. Such was the ungovernable violence of the two parties, that they had recourse not only to calumny, hut to blows ; and the < rovernmenl was finally obliged to banish the heads of the Anti-Concinniste faction. [ppoliti, who . licci ''il'il him, followed his example. The writings of the monks of Port-Royal, Arnauld, Nicole. Duguet, Gourlin, and Qnesnel, were dissemi nated during the time thai he was Bishop ; and Ricci, finally competed their triumph. 120 SECRETS OF The diocesses of Colle and Chiusi followed the same example. Next follows a statistical account of the ecclesias- tical state of Tuscany. In 1784, the Grand Duchy contained the astonishing number of 7,957 secular priests ; 2,581 persons in orders of an inferior rank ; 2,433 regular priests, with 1,627 lay-brothers, distri- buted over two hundred and thirteen convents; besides 7,670 nuns, occupying a hundred and thirty-six estab- lishments of seclusion. Then succeeds a long enumeration of reforms effect- ed by the Grand Duke, before convoking that assembly, which was to put the finishing stroke to his ecclesias- tical designs, to prepare their ratification, and to give notice to" the approaching national council of the measures which he intended it to complete and put in force. Leopold endeavored to give fresh vigor to ecclesias- tical studies by the foundation of academies, which should be strictly confined to such an object ; and he strongly inculcated on the bishops the necessity of keeping a vigilant eye on the morals of the clergy, and of admitting no one into the priesthood, who was not in every respect worthy of becoming a member of it. He farther adopted every possible measure for prevent- ing the too great poverty, and consequent contempt, of the clergy ; he rendered the curacies perpetual, and compelled the curates to reside, and to perform their duties with punctuality. Next, he abolished the ex- emptions and noxious privileges enjoyed by the regu- lar clergy ; and it was his "desire that they should neither be dependent on Rome, or any superior, or on any bishop residing without the limits of the state. He never appointed any superiors but such as were Tuscans and natives of the kingdom ; he suppressed the class of hermits ; and he was anxious to prevent the payment of taxes to any one not residing within the kingdom. He prohibited females from assuming the religious habit before the age of twenty-five, and FEMALE CONVENTS. 121 from making- formal profession before they were thirty. He reduced all the female convents where the com- munal life was not, or could not be strictly observed ; and converted them into conservatories entirely depen- dent on the Government, except in spiritual matters, in which no vows were required, and in which they were obliged to instruct young females, and to keep open school. He diminished the pomp of the church festivals and ceremonies, as well as their numbers; abolished all societies denominated Pious, all congre- gations, confraternities, and third orders, &c; and substituted for them a single confraternity, called the Confraternity of Charity, which was ordered to assist in the discharge of religious functions, in succoring and relieving the sick, in accompanying the viaticum, &c. He suppressed the Inquisition, and restored to the bishops the right of trying spiritual causes, exhort- ing them at the same time to conduct themselves with clemency and mildness. He forbade, in the strongest terms, the publication of any address, censure, or ex- oommunication, which had not been sanctioned by the royal Exequatur; he totally prohibited and suppressed the hulls /// caena and Ambitiosce ; abolished the privi- enjoyed by the priests of trying laymen in their courts; subjected every one in holy orders to the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals, when the offence charged was of a criminal character; and left to the iastical courts, merely the cognizance of matters of a purely spiritual nature. In a preliminary discourse, the author informs us, that th'' Tuscan bishops, in obedience to the orders of tin; Grand Duke, prepared to hold their diocesan synods, when they received from Leopold fifty-seven theological points, which Ik; desired them to consider, and to send him their answers. 'I'Ih' same was signified in a second circular, dated January, L786, winch contained a declaration of the mi "H i ion of Leopold io purge religion of the abuses and superstitions by which it was disfigured, and to restore it to its primitive purity and perfection. He at the 11 128 SECRETS OF same time implored them to express their sentiments fearlessly and boldly on that head. " The intelligence and information of the Grand Duke were every where admired, and his fifty-seven points were reprinted in France." Ricci availed himself of this circumstance to hold a diocesan synod of Pistoia. The answers of the bishops to the fifty-seven points being far from uniform, the Grand Duke adopted the resolution of calling, previously to the convocation of the national council of which he had sketched the plan, an assembly of bishops, in which the matters in- tended to be agitated, should be prepared and discussed in such a way as to leave no pretext for opposition or discord. In March, 1787, the bishops were convoked ; and their assembly opened in the following April. The whole of Tuscany was occupied with this event, and more particularly those persons who had either been delighted with the suppression of the Je- suits, or who deplored that unexpected catastrophe. The former opposed, with the Prince and some Tus- can prelates, the pretensions of the Court of Rome and the superstitious notions of the vulgar, particularly the Worship of the Sacred Heart, Cordicoles, which was the rallying sign of the secret Society of the Jesuits, the impenetrable mystery of whose proceedings con- cealed the continual additions which it made to its members. The others, on the contrary, employed every means in their power to support that society, and were aided in their pernicious designs by the populace, the monks, and the Court of Rome. Three archbishops and fourteen bishops attended the first session, and were, each of them, accompanied by two or three legal advisers. A violent dispute took place in regard to the manner of expressing the opin- ion and will of the assembly, or rather on the canonical mode of procedure in councils of a similar kind ; the resolutions of the assembly, on that point, naturally serving as a model for the guidance of the approaching national council. The opposition party, that is five- FEMALE CONVENTS. * 123 sixths of the assembly, loudly called for the plurality of votes, which were in their favor, as the best mode of expressing it ; the other party insisted on the unan- imity which the Grand Duke had demanded in his circular. The question was finally determined in favor of a plurality of votes, and the Bishops of Pistoia, of Colle, and of Ohiusi, were obliged to content them- selves with an insertion of their protest against this irregularity. The second session opened by a recommendation of secrecy in regard to the proceedings of the assembly, — a secrecy which had been violated in so scandalous a manner, in regard to what had taken place at the first meeting of the bishops, that the speeches of each of the members had been very currently reported in almost every house at Florence. They next proceeded to an examination of the three first points proposed by the Grand Duke. All the members agreed in the opinion expressed by the Prince, except in regard to the deliberative voice which be conferred on those who were only priests; and which the assembly, with the exception of the Bishops of Pistoia, Colle, and Ohiusi, and the canons and theologians Yccchi, Tanzini, Palmieri, Lon- ginelli, &c., would only recognise as consultative. In the very animated discussion which took place on the subject, the Bishop of Pescia behaved with the greatest violence, and allowed himself to be so transported with passion, that he accused Pahnieri of heresy, because he had proposed ;m examination of the right of the priests to sit as synodal judges. 1 i.ui n))i<-< I i, the adviser of the Archbishop of Pisa, gave the appellation of conventi- cles to those councils which had permitted such an irregularity ; notwithstanding his opponents distinctly proved that such had heeii the practice in the councils which were held in the timesof.the primitive Church. In the third session, the subject of the plurality or unanimity of votes, as necessary for guiding the deci- sions of the approaching council, was renewed. The fifteen bishops of the opposition party declared in 124 SECRETS OF favor of a plurality, in all cases whatsoever ; the re- maining three, only in cases relating to the discipline of the Church, strict unanimity being always required in matters of faith. These three prelates gave in their vote, concerning the deliberative right of the priests in synodal assem- blies, for insertion among the acts. The assembly next proceeded to an examination of the fourth point, on which no discussion took place ; the necessity of correcting the missal and breviary having been agreed to by a resolution. The three metropolitans were ordered to execute this duty with as little delay as possible. The proposal for using the language of the country in the administration of the sacraments was not so well received ; and the opposition, in endeavoring to combat its propriety, gave proofs of their ignorance, which were very carefully exposed. However, after showing the opponents of the measure that the Latin language was universally understood and spoken, at the period of composing the liturgy, all of them agreed that it would be proper to employ a language which was familiar to the people. In regard to the fifth point, the fathers were unani- mously of opinion, that the bishops possessed the pri- vilege of granting all lawful dispensations. The op- position party maintained that the privilege of granting them, enjoyed by the court of Rome, ought to be re- spected ; but became divided as to whether it would he sufficient to demand from the Pope power to resume their ancient rights, or whether it would be most pro- per to receive at his hands the power necessary for granting dispensations. The three bishops of the adverse party refused to agree to this last proposition, because it would have the effect of making the episco- copal body be looked upon as merely the delegates, in that respect, of the Court of Rome, which ever after- wards, whenever it might think proper to repent of the concession, would resume the privilege under pretence of its being merely a temporary grant. These three FEMALE CONVENTS, 125 prelates having finally agreed, for the purpose of attest- ing it by a specific act, to request permission to resume the exercise of their ancient rights, of which they only considered themselves the depositaries, and which they consequently could not give up, the Bishops of Sam- miniato and of Soana joined them. The others con- tinued their opposition, principally at the instigation of the Archbishop of Pisa. By order of the Grand-duke, the affair of the Bishop of Chiusi and Pienza was taken into consideration. A pastoral letter in regard to the hidden truths of sound doctrine, which he had addressed, in April, 1786, to the clergy and the orthodox part of his diocese, had been approved by several theologians of the highest merit and reputation, and was afterwards printed and published. Rome condemned it in the course of that year by a brief, which it transmitted to the prelate, accusing him of evil intentions, and enjoining him to retract. The prelate, in his reply, cleared himself from the accusation as to the purity of his intentions, of which, he said, no one had any right to judge; demonstrated the absolute impossibility of retracting the whole of what he had advanced in his pastoral address, inasmuch as it contained many unquestion- able articles of belief; and requested that the errors of which he had been guilty might be pointed out to him as soon as possible, as he only waited to be made aware of them, in order to retract them. Next year the Pope despatched another brief, much more violent than the first, and full of the grossest abuse, not only of the Bishop of Chiusi, hut of the whole episcopal body of Tuscany, of the Government, and of the Prince who was at ils head, who, it was there alleged, was tinctured with heterodox opinions. The prelate, ■■it'tcr such a gross personal insult, in despair of receiv- ing any justice ;ii the hands of the Court of Rome, communicated the whole affair to the Grand Duke. There is also an excellent memorial by Ricci, which was read in the assembly, concerning the inalienable rights of the clergy to full and absolute jurisdiction IV 126 SECRETS 0E over their diocesses — rights of which the councils nei- ther wished nor could deprive them, and which they have only explained hy the canons ; rights which all pastors are obliged to claim in full, and which they must exercise for the good of those committed to their charge. This is the passage which relates to the re- servations of the Court of Rome. " During the early ages of the Church, no instance occurs of any general and perpetual reservation by the councils in favor of the Pope, nor of any limitation of the power of the bishops prescribed by the Popes themselves. What now remains of the applications which were made to Rome at that time, are in fact any thing but reservations or limitations. The practice then was, to communicate to the Bishop of Rome the most difficult and important cases which occurred ; to inform her of the fortunate or unfortunate state of the churches which were spread abroad in different parts of the world, and to request her to interest herself in regard to them. The Church of Rome communicated in the same manner her affairs to the other churches, particularly to those which were the most celebrated and most respectable. As they only formed altogether one body and family under the authority of one su- preme and invisible" head, Jesus Christ, every thing which occurred, whether fortunate or unfortunate, was considered as affecting the whole. The communica- tions to the Church at Rome were naturally of more frequent occurrence than to any ether, from its being the most important and respectable. That circum- stance, however, does not by any means prove a right of reservation on her part, which is contradicted by what actually took place on such occasions ; the most authentic of the ancient decretals being only simple advices or exhortations. " Rome herself did not even pretend to the posses- sion of any legislative authority. The Popes, when they were consulted on any point, either solved the doubts which were proposed, or prescribed the obser- vation of rules, not on the authority of any laws en- FEMALE CONVENTS. acted by themselves, or any right of reservation, but on that of tradition and the canons, to which they acknowledged themselves bound to yield obedience. Whenever they attempted a departure from these prin- ciples, or sought to convert them to any bad purpose, the rest of the churches protested against the irregu- larity of the proceeding, and boldly applied to it the proper remedy. ■• There can be no doubt that the attempt to legislate for, and to command the rest of the churches, took its origin after the period of the false decretals, and that it was not made either immediately or at once ; for, in general, even the decrees of Innocent III., and Alex- ander Uf. retained, for a long time after that period, tin- mere character of exhortations and advices. The frequency, however, of these consultations, the univer- sal ignorance which prevailed everywhere except at Rome, and the political circumstances of the times, made the advice of the Popes to be carried into effect without the slightest hesitation or modification. Hence, in the course of time, they were considered as of equal authority with the laws ; while the Popes themselves, not finding any resistance to their injunctions, and pretending to believe that they were invested with authority to pronounce them, went so far as to arrogate that every thing relating to the church was within the cognizance of their jurisdiction. •■ Nothing is more common than to see absolute and unlimited power degenerating into excess and tyranny: and such was the ease with the authority of the Popes. 'I'll'' extravagances of the despotism of the Court of Rome (rave rise tomurmursand dissatisfaction. The power which they enjoyed was never a source of in! tranquillity. The concordats of Germany and Prance, ill'' pragmatic sanctions, the liberties of th'' <; iliican Church, as they were called, are all of them to be considered as so many proofs of the opposi- tion which was made i<> the attempts of the Court of Rome, and as so many bulwarks raised by (he liishops and the people, with the view of preserving to them- 12S SECRETS OF selves some portion of their primitive and indestruc- tible rights. " The councils of Constance and Basle wished to strike at the very root of the evil ; that of Trent at- tempted to restore to the bishops as much of their authority as the preponderance of the Court of Rome would permit. All these attempts have been unsuc- cessful ; and Rome, by the creation of its various Con- gregations, has devised so many methods of multiplying its reservations, that they have become so numerous as scarcely to leave at the disposal of the bishops a shadow of the authority which originally formed a part of the episcopal character." The seventh article was next taken into considera tion. The opposition spent but little time in combat- ing the uniformity of instruction and doctrine de- manded by Leopold, that it might let loose all its fury and violence against Augustin, whom it used every effort to blacken, as being the only source of that uni- form doctrine. Lampredi went so far as to declare the author a hot-headed declaimer ! The opposition bishops, not knowing either how to avert the blow with which they were threatened, or how they could deny the authority of a father of the Church so cele- brated as Augustin, offered to admit it, on condition that his works should always be accompanied by those of his faithful interpreter, Thomas. The Dominicans had succeeded in making that scholastic writer speak the language of the Jesuits, and they were desirous of making common cause with them. It was objected, however, that the consequence of such a proceeding, would be a return to all the ab- surdities of the ancient school ; that the writings of Augustin had been perfectly well understood until the time of Thomas, who had rendered them obscure by his attempts to explain them ; that Bams, Jansenius, and Quesnel, to whom it was pretended that he had given birth, made their appearance after his inter- preter ; and finally that the proposition of Mamachi, Augustinus eget Thoma interpreter Augustin requires FEMALE CONVENTS. 129 the explanations of Thomas, had been tacitly con- demned by the See of Rome. It was only in conse- quence of this partial concession on the part of the Court of Rome, that Vasquez, general of the Angus- tins had recalled the prohibition which he had issued four years before, to quote or name Thomas in any disputes which might arise in future: "the time," said lie, "is gone by, in which there is any ground for dreading the bugbear accusation of being tinctured with that chimerical heresy, denominated Jansenism." The necessity, however, of accompanying Augustin with the explanations of Thomas, was decreed by a majority of the assembly ; and a commission named to regulate the method of instruction, and to point out the authors who had been most successful in expounding the doctrines of that writer. It is not a little remark- able that a work was proposed, in which the adver- saries of the opposition proved that the writer had in- eulcated the seditious maxims of Pope Gregory VII., by applying to sovereign princes the epithets of "ser- of the Pope ;" by decrying the authority of gen- eral councils, and converting the Roman PontifTmto an absolute despot. The Archbishop of Florence de- nominated these grave errors " trifling blemishes," an expression on which Ricci commented Avith much warmth and severity." The measures recommended by Leopold in his eighth article for preventing any persons from receiv- ing ordination, except those who had been properly instruetedj whose morals were unexceptionable, and whose vocation could not be called in question, as well as for preventing a greater number from being ordain- ed than was absolutely required for the service of the < !hurch, gat* the opposition some reason to fear that bed to diminish the number of the clergy. They accordingly employed their utmostefforts to prove that Tuscany instead of having too many priests, or any r ere useless, rather stood in need of some addi- tion to its present number; and urged thai opinion with such determined obstinacy, that il became necessary to IS'J SECRETS OF allow each bishop to regulate his diocess in that matter as he might deem most proper. The consequence was, that while all agreed to the truth of the principle that no useless priests should be ordained, each reserved to himself the right of ordaining as many as he chose. The clergy denominated Eugenian, belonging to the cathedral of Florence, who were made priests for no other reason than the services which they had rendered to that church, were exempted from all reform. From thirty-three clerks who composed it at its commence- ment, that body had increased to one hundred and fifty. The grand argument employed throughout the whole of this discussion was, that bishops ought not to tie up their own hands. The same argument was made use of to combat the ninth point, concerning the necessity of fixing eighteen as the proper age for receiving the tonsure, and enter- ing into the clerical profession ; as weW as of ridding the churches and the service, of the children employed in the choir, who went through their duty with as little decency as fervor. The fear of seeing the numbers of the clergy diminished by the lopping off of any one of the shoots fromwhich it was increased, was so great, that it became necessary to leave this article also to the dis- cretion of the bishops. Testimony was given by Longinelli, who was di- rector, during eleven years, in regard to the Eugenian clergy of Florence, the most numerous collegiate body perhaps in the whole of Europe. Speaking of their disorderly habits, he says, " At the time that I resided in that city, I used my best endeavors to eradicate, at least, the most apparent eauses and occasions of the irregularities which were committed ; such, for exam- ple, as the nocturnal service; but I dare not natter my- self that I succeeded in extirpating the whole. The admixture of so many little boys of very tender years, opens so many sources of disorder, that the utmost vigilance of the most attentive master is incapable of detecting them. The children who enter into the society of these young clerks, find these disorders in full ope- FEMALE CON \J: 131 ration, and in a short time they also become infected with the contagion." Longinelli reckons four hundred persons in orders, at Florence alone. The tenth, the eleventh, and the twelfth articles, fur- nished but little food for dispute. The opponents of the measures promised to conform themselves to them as far as possible ; and the other bishops declared that they would regulate their conduct by the expressions of Leopold, in the same way as with the two preceding articles. The thirteenth article presents nothing remarkable, except the unanimous adoption, after some little debate, of the principle put forth by the Grand Duke, "that the right of patronage in the case of churches, cannot justify any one in nominating a pastor who is disagree- able to the congregation ; and that due deference must be paid in every case, to the right which the people have to good spiritual directors and solid instruction." The fourteenth article gave rise to a very interesting and very n nil Milled discussion on the practice of asking charity for saying masses ; a means employed by an avaricious "priesthood for retaining the people inigno- rance, ossible. He refused to do any thing that might dishonor himself, or consent to make any confession which should hurt his conscience; and though strongly pressed by Leopold, he remained, firm in his ancient opinions, and "continued to hold fast the doctrines which he had always professed." The Emperor reiterated his orders to the Regency in the most formal terms ; but no steps were taken to put an end to the troubles. The Government gave orders a second time, however, for Ricci to return to Pistoia, as Leopold and his son were daily expected ; and this order created a great effervescence throughout the whole of Ricci's diocess. The Emperor arrived in April, 1 791. The malcon- tents of Pistoia presented a request to his Majesty, that he would deliver them from their Bishop ; but they 17 194 SECRETS OF were very coolly received. The Bishop was received in a very different manner by Leopold, as well as by the Prince, who gave him a public audience, in which he assured him of his support. This encouraged his adherents in the two diocesses, who earnestly demanded the return of their pastor. But it was already deter- mined that the repose of the country should be purchased by the dismission of Ricci, and Leopold hinted this to him distinctly in their last interview. The moment for accomplishing his utter ruin was not yet come. His enemies, however, continued to keep up the cry against him, and repeated till they fancied they understood their own meaning, that Ricci did not believe in the Pope. The Grand Duke addressed himself to the persecuted prelate, and desired to know what it was his intention to do. Ricci left the decision of the question entirely to Ferdinand, and wrote to him to that effect. The Grand Duke sent him a form of resignation, which Ricci only modified so far as to render it canonical, and signed it the same day. When Ricci was about to leave his diocess for ever, all those who were not quite his enemies expressed their regret at losing him, either in person or by letter ; and this was the only consolation now left to him. In vain he retired from public life. While a public man, only his system and his enterprises had been attacked: now, ; the attacks were turned upon him personally. The first attempt made on him was in the shape of a long lawsuit, to deprive him of the pension which had been promised him. He refused, however, to plead the cause, and preferred renouncing the salary. Another source of regret was, to see his successor, Falchi, confirm all that had been perpetrated by the ignorant and turbulent persons of his diocess ; the banishment of all attached to his person or opinions ; and the desolation of the ecclesiastical patrimony raised for the payment of the clergy. The ex- Bishop, amidst all these events, led a retired life, forgetting the promises which had been held out FEMALE CONVENTS. 195 to him by the Government, as a compensation for the loss of his bishopric, as easily as those promises had been forgotten. The death of the Emperor, in March, 1792, removed all restraint upon the enemies of Ricci, and especially from Falchi, who immediately invented a report, that the late diocesans of Ricci, whom Falchi had banished, had kept up a correspondence with their late Bishop, on the best means of poisoning Falchi ; and he drew up an absurd declaration, which only published to the world the folly of his atrocious suspicions. The Court of Rome now determined to interfere in these persecutions of Ricci, especially when it discover- ed that the Synod of Pistoia had served as a model for the civil constitution of the clergy, recommended by the French Constituent Assembly. Pius YI. began by fulminating the most outrageous declarations against the French. Afterwards he attacked the Bishop of Pistoia ; and it was determined, at one time, to cite Ricci before the Papal Court. The success of the French arms, however, and the indignation they felt at the interference of the Pope,, stopped this for a time. Of the extravagancies and horrors then perpetrated at Rome, Ricci received the following account : " The principal efforts were directed against the Ghetto, the quarter of the Jews, whose pillage had been promised to the Roman mob, as a reward for the murder of the Republicans, and whom fanaticism held forth to the blood-thirsty Catholics as the enemies of their God. M. Y. informs us, that it required all the efforts of several thousands of soldiers to prevent all Jews, who had shut themselves up in their houses, from being burnt to death. The Romans demanded, with loud cries, permission to "burn them in honor of Peter and Paul, of religion and his Holiness :" the shouts of hatred and death to the French were min- gled with these transports of ferocious devotion. " The outcries commenced in the midst of gangs of barbers and postilions, among whom were also some Abbes of respectable families. To satisfy the people, 196 SECRETS OF Pius VI. subjected the Jews again to all the restrictions, duties, penalties, exactions, and to the distinguishing and infamous marks to which Pius V. had condemned them, and which the progress of civilization, of know- ledge, of justice, and of humanity, had abolished." Ricci now resolved to live altogether in private, in order to avoid giving his enemies any pretences for farther persecution. His buildings and his occupations were devoted to the benefit of the poor ; and while he employed himself in furthering the welfare of his fel- low creatures, he could not help being grieved at the conduct of those whose duty it was to meliorate their condition, instead of rendering it more perilous and painful. It was in this light that he regarded the conduct of the Roman Court, which was then preaching up a crusade against the French, and inflaming the people by noisy and turbulent missions. This produced the massacre of Basseville, and the popular tumult which was excited by the priests, who determined, "in the name of the Virgin, the Apostles, and the Pope," to murder all the French, and burn all the Jews who were to be found in Rome. Such infamous policy as this only rendered the situation of the Pope more criti- cal, and tended to hasten the fall of the Papal throne. While the French conquests were threatening the temporal monarchy of the Pope, the Spanish ministry was menacing its spiritual despotism, by announcing the publication of the Acts of the Council of Pistoia. " The reprinting of the Synod of Pistoia, which was about to be published in Spain, has decided the issuing of the brief, Auctoretn Fidei, in order to prevent it. The non-publication of the acts of Ricci's synod was in consequence of the fears with which Rome still in- spired Spain at that period. The germs, however, of a reform, similar to the one effected by the Grand Duke Leopold, did not on that account spring up the less ; and, when the change of circumstances had operated a total revolution in ideas, when it had emboldened the old Governments of Europe by humbling the FEMALE CONVENTS. 197 Court of Rome, their ancient enemy, the courage of the Spanish bishops appeared to revive, the Minister resumed his former plans, and the Concordat he was then desirous of concluding, seemed to be entirely con- formable to the principles of modern canonists. The Pope trembled, and the Jansenists mutually communi- cated their hopes." " It consoles me to see that good principles begin to find their way into Spain, where several bishops think of reforming many abuses." " It is not the Synod of Pistoia which raises its voice, but men who are at length aroused from their profound sleep, lashed by the tyrannical despotism of the cursed Babylon, Rome ! I hope that the synod thus severely treated, will become the model for this portion of Spa- nish Catholicism." " The arrival at Rome of the Spanish ministers, causes as much alarm there, as, a short time ago, did the approach of the French army. The latter, at the worst, only exacted a temporary contribution. The former threaten the fixed funds and revenues from which that court draws wherewithal to support its luxury and splendor." The Papal Court, as usual, tried to operate a diver- sion in its favor, by ordaining a final examination of the Council of Pistoia, intending to issue a formal con- demnation of it. Accordingly, in April, 1794, Ricci received an inti- mation from Rome, that the Pope would be graciously pleased to hear a defence of his synod, if he should appear at Rome before the Bull was issued against him. This letter Ricci communicated to Ferdinand, representing that the Pope had violated his promise towards Leopold ; but Ferdinand, who was unwilling to give up Ricci on the one hand, and on the other dreaded the vengeance of Rome, recommended Ricci to refuse going to Rome, on the ground of his ill health. He was enjoined to declare his devotion to the Pope, and to insinuate that it was surely unnecessarv for his 17* 1&9 SECRETS OP Holiness to occupy himself with the acts of a synod, which were now no where in force. The object of the Spanish Government, in wishing to publish the Acts of the Synod of Pistoia, was, that they might serve as a basis to the reforms which it contemplated ; and this was the cause of the anxiety of the Papal Court for their suppression. With this view, the Pope caused his Nuncio to give the Spanish Court notice of the approaching condemnation of the assembly of Pistoia, and this sufficed to stop the pro- jected printing of them. Without replying farther to Ricci, the Pope issued, August, 1794, the famous Bull Auctoreni Fidel, of which none of the articles were communicated to Ricci, notwithstanding the Pope's promise to that effect, given to Leopold. Ricci, who had received no notice of his own condemnation, was resolved not to reply to what he was not supposed to know. Ferdinand approved of his conduct, and the Bull was forbidden to be sold or published in any of the Tuscan States, though the Pope's Nuncio contrived to circulate it surreptitiously among the people. The Bull did. not, however, produce all the effects which the Papal Court expected. It was suppressed at Naples, Turin, Venice, Milan, in Spain, Portugal, and France ; and even at Rome it was despised. " At Rome, this affair, the condemnation of the Sy- nod of Pistoia by the Bull Auctorem, is spoken of still less than at Florence ; that is to say, it is not spoken of at all." But Rome, though deprived of the triumph she ex- pected, contrived, by her intrigues, to excite against Ricci the envy and hatred of "all his old colleagues, particularly Falchi ; and however retired the ex-bishop lived, he could not but feel the effects of them. The people dispersed when he mounted the altar, even his confessor refused him absolution, and he was very near passing for one of the most dangerous heretics. It was at that time sufficient to bear the name of Jansenist, to be overwhelmed with all the implacable hatred of Rome, which saw in the Jansenists its most FEMALE CONVENTS. 199 dangerous enemies ; and to be exposed to all the per- secutions and vexations which fanatics, bigots, fools, and hypocrites are capable of inflicting. The success of the French revolution, which was regarded as the completion of Jansenism, whilst both of them were but the result of the greater or less extension of knowledge, had rendered this religious furor much more ardent than it had been before this epoch. Sciarelli wrote from Colle, September, 1794 : " I find several propositions condemned, which pre- viously to this Bull my limited understanding had con- sidered Catholic ones. The Bishop of Pistoia and his followers condemned the propositions condemned by the Roman Court, in the very sense of the Bull — a sense which never had been either theirs, or that of the dio- cesan synod. Did not those sectaries themselves, like the primitive Jansenists, know what they believed, or what they ought to believe 1 Or rather, did their greater or less degree of faith depend, not upon their more or less share of piety or knowledge, but upon the greater or less strength of their character for resisting the caresses and the menaces of the Court of Rome ?" Camillo Albergotti Pezzoni wrote from Arezzo, Sep- tember, 1794: " Trie mania for universal dominion always renders the Court of Rome more and more obstinate in the pro- fession of her pernicious, lax and Loiolistical maxims; puffed up with papal infallibility, she declares war against the defenders of the wholesome doctrine of the Church, which is that of Augustin. In the present situation of Europe, the Pope excites pity, when he is seen hurling forth decrees of condemnation one after another, which wound the sovereign authority. He speaks of the Bull Auctorem, and guarantees maxims of laxity. This is the work of the Bolegni, Cuccagni, Marchetti, Zaccharia, &c. This slow surprise made upon the Pope by the shameless Molinists, against the Augustinian doctrine, is a fresh infallible argument of the fallibility of his Holiness." The Abbe D. sent Ricci the decree of the Inquisition 200 SECRETS OF of Genoa, printed at Genoa, and bearing the following date : Ex edibus S. Inquisitionis Genua?, die 19 Sep- tembris, 1794, from the Palace of the Holy Inquisition of Genoa, 19th Sept. 1794. That decree was directed against the acts of the Synod of Pistoia, which had been proscribed, as it was expressed by the Pontifical Bull. The Abbe adds to this document, so remarka- ble for the period, the copy of a letter written by Fra Benedetto, brother Benedict Solari, Bishop of Noli, to the Senate of Genoa, to disprove and combat the said decree, and the condemnation of the acts of the Coun- cil of Pistoia, which he declared he would not receive. In the mean time, the influence of the French was daily more and more felt in Italy, by means of the Republican arms. It was in Italy as in Spain. The new opinions, equally favorable to the governments and the national clergy, no longer finding the same resistance on the part of Rome, which was reduced to defend its own existence, were rapidly propagated, and received with welcome, especially by those who had hitherto been denominated the lower clergy. The French Consti- tutionalists seconded with all their energy this moral revolution, by disseminating their opinions and max- ims, in proportion as they extended their communica- tions, with their correspondence, the only method of at length rendering their Church, if not more respect- able in the opinion of the Roman court, at least more formidable, which" produced the same results. The character of cannibals had been generally given to the French in Italy, by all the weak and timid Governments, who hoped to inspire the people with the courage of despair against pretended kinds of monsters whom they had held up as objects of terror in the tales of the nursery. The Papal Government particularly distinguished itself by those puerile follies. It caused it to be reported throughout all its States, that the French Republicans were impious men, and barbarians ; that they married several wives, .and adored several gods, amongst others the idol called FEMALE CONVENTS. 201 the Tree of Liberty ; that they violated women and young girls, and devoured children. This is asserted in a pamphlet published by Annibal Mario tti, who, upon the entrance of the brigands of Arezzo into Pe- rugia, was arrested, for having refuted these absurd Papal calumnies. He was one of the twenty individ- uals detained for Jacobinism, whom the regency of Perugia selected from among a thousand victims which crowded their prison, and whom it granted to the Aretins, who had only asked for ten, to grace their triumphal return to Arezzo. As the civil constitution of the French clergy had been modelled upon the reforms of Leopold, it was neither judged proper to condemn them at Florence, nor to persecute their partisans. Ricci, therefore, thought he might now come and inhabit the capital. The Court of Rome seemed driven to its fate by a kind of insanity. It issued new Bulls against the French Directory more furious than the first. Another method it adopted was, to excite the mob, by the exhi- bition of pretended miracles, to renew the Sicilian Vespers throughout Italy. The shutting and opening of the eyes of the Madonnas in the churches and streets were tricks principally resorted to, and were interpreted by the priests as irrefragable proof of the victory which the soldiers of the Roman Court would infallibly gain over the troops of the Republic. We shall notice the miracle of the famous Madonna of Ancona. From a work published a few years ago, we can see the spirit of those who governed at the period connected with this history, and the nature of that which they are endeavoring to establish in the present day. This work is entitled : — " A moral and historical picture of the invasion of Italy in 1796, and of the miraculous and simultaneous opening of the eyes of the holy image of the most blessed Maria, reverenced in the Cathedral of Ancona : Assisi, 1820 : With license." The author is the Abbe Vincent Albertini, professor of eloquence at Fermo. After his portrait, which is 202 SECRETS OF immediately followed by that of the Madonna, is the author's Dedication to the most blessed Virgin. Then comes the introduction. "Modern policy, it is said, is wholly occupied with the most moderate plans and systems, with the most salutary amnesties, and with a most sincere and unreserved oblivion of the past, with the conviction that this will be found not a momentary, but a lasting panacea for all the evils which have so long afflicted Europe." Albertini commences his subject by a long disserta- tion upon the eyes so full of tenderness of the Vir- gin. " Hitherto nothing had been so common as to see those eyes turn towards us, but then it was only from the summit of the Heaven where she dwells." It was for Ancona that the rare happiness was reserved of possessing the first image of the Virgin which visibly opened and shut eyes painted upon the cloth, and this at a time when the presence of the French kept up the violent agitation of men's minds. He attributes that agitation, which he calls a con- vulsion, to " the abominable race of anti-social misan- thropes, self-styled philosophic regenerators ;" and maintains that history will confound them with the Ravaillacs, the Cromwells, the Mirabeaus, the Marats, and the Robespierres. He speaks of the miracle of Ancona, which look place June, 1796; at the very time when the news, which had been spread about, of the defeat of the French in Germany and Upper Italy, had made the subjects of his Holiness believe that all that was want- ed to effect a complete riddance of the presence of the Republicans was a small quantity of popular fanaticism, very easy to be aroused by means of some pretended prodigies. " The angels," says the author, " who, upon their heavenly throne, worship with profound veneration their mighty sovereign — the angels, whose countenances we are not permitted to behold, envy, in some degree, your lot." All the inhabitants of Ancona flocked to this image of the miraculous Virgin, and manifested the most FEMALE CONVENTS. 203 sincere signs of penitence, joy, and devotion. Cardinal Ranuzzi showed himself among- the foremost. There was a plausible motive for the Virgin per- forming her miracle at Ancona, in preference to any- other place ; which Albertini thus explains : — " Ancona, placed in the centre of Italy, is a sea-port; vessels might, therefore, carry in a short time the news of this miracle from the Adriatic Gulf to the most distant nations of the two hemispheres." Our author assures us that Jesus Christ conceived the first idea of this anti-republican miracle ; and spake to his Mother in the following strange manner : " Go, O conciliating and mediating between God and man, whom thou hast conquered ! In thee have I placed the seat of my power. By thy means I grant the favors asked at my hands. As thou gavest to me the essence of man, so will I give to thee that of God, my omnipotence, with which thou canst assist all who recommend themselves to thee !" Albertini desires, he says, not the death, but the con- version of the sinner. He would even have wished that the Emperor Julian, whom Christian historians have named the Apostate, and whom he calls the im^ pious iconoclast, could have seen only once the miracle which the most noble city of Ancona enjoyed for seve-* ral months together. The famous restoration of the absolute Governments, which is also a miracle, could not be passed over in silence by the historian of the miraculous image. " All the Italian princes, with the exception of the overthrown Republics, are stupified, as after a long sleep, in seeing themselves reinstated in their feudal dominions, — an event which no human power could have calculated." Then follows the history of the miraculous image placed in a magnificent chapel of Cyriac at Ancona : " So unheard-of a prodigy was attested by more than eighty thousand ocular witnesses, and by legal inqui- ries. A true account of it was published, by order of Cardinal Ranuzzi. Besides this, the deputy Betti made 204 SECRETS OF it a duty to transmit this fact to posterity, by means of an inscription engraven upon stone, and which, for the purpose of preserving the recollection of it for ever, was placed in the cathedral. " In November, 1796, was finished the proces verbal which had been drawn up of the proofs of this miracle, under the strictest regulations. " The Pope, by his brief of November, had just instituted a pious brotherhood in honor of this image, under the name of the Sons and Daughters of Maria. After this miracle, it was found impossible to close the church for twelve successive nights, so great was the concourse of people attracted by the prodigy." "In July, three painters, the Vicar Pacifici, the notary Francois Vallaca, and the attorney Bonavia, accompanied by several witnesses taken from the canons, by many noblemen and some foreigners, went to examine the maimer in which the holy image was painted, in order to ascertain with certainty whether some imposture, the work of human malice, had not been introduced by means of the change of colors, &c. Scarcely had they taken off the glass which covered it, when the image opened its ever blessed eyes twice successively, to a greater extent than it had ever be- fore done, and then closed them again, as a still farther proof of the truth of the first miracle." It is not exactly clear whence arose the incredulity of the examining commissioners, since at the time of the solelmn procession of June, the day after the mira- cle, the Virgin did nothing but open, shut, and turn her eyes on all sides, to the great delight of the inhabit- ants, who wept tears of joy. In June 1800, and Au- gust, 1817, this same procession took place, by way of thanksgiving ; but the Virgin did not vouchsafe to open her eyes. It appears she had seen enough ! Pius VII. crowned the miraculous image in May, 1814, an event which was commemorated by an in- scription. He fixed its anniversary on the second Sun- day of the same month, and attached to it the benefit of a plenary indulgence. Albertini says, that it would FEMALE CONVENTS. 205 require too much time to make a catalogue of the plenary and partial indulgences granted by the Popes Pius VI. and Pius VII., in favor of this image. Bonaparte, who arrived at Ancona a short time after the pretended miracle had been worked, caused the miraculous image to be brought by the canons of the Cathedral to the Palace Trionfi, where he was lodged ; and to be stripped of all its rich ornaments and jewels, which he gave over into the hand of the President of the Municipality, in aid of the poorest hospital in the city. The lawyer Bonavia, a partisan of the French, then related to the General all that had taken place, and corroborated his account by the testimony of one hundred thousand persons, all present at the perform- ance of the miracle. Bonaparte took the image, and looked at it with the greatest attention for a long time. " It cannot be precisely asserted," says Albertini, " that the Virgin opened her eyes in his presence, but one cannot help at least supposing so." That great man continued looking at the image steadfastly, and suddenly was seen to change color. He also made gestures indicative of trouble and surprise. " He fin- ished by restoring to it all its jewels and ornaments — to the great detriment of the hospitals and the poor, whom this new miracle again plunged into misery — and had it replaced upon its accustomed altar, where, for greater awe, he ordered it to be covered with a veil." The Memoirs of Antommarchi prove to us, that in his last moments, the Emperor spoke with very little reverence of the Italian Madonnas. " The miracle was afterwards attested by persons of all classes, by rich and poor, by magistrates and pri- vate citizens, by ecclesiastics and laymen, by the devout and the incredulous, by Catholics and Protestants, by Infidels and Jews, by all nations, by all climes, by all ranks, as is stated in the certificate which is preserved among the archives of the venerable church of Ancona." The incredulous, Protestants, Turks, and Jews, as lit- tle expected to figure among the witnesses of a miracle, 18 2U6 SECRETS OF operated by and for the profit of the Court of Rome, as Napoleon himself. In September, the miracle continuing- to be regularly shown to the curious, the Emperor of Germany caused a solemn procession to be made, offered a rich gift in wax-lights, and appropriated a large sum of money for the celebration of masses. Amelia, Duchess of Parma, embroidered with her own hands some valuable tissues, and sent them to the Holy Virgin. " The miracles of the images of Ancona, Rome, Civita Vecchia, Maurata, and Ascoli, occupy every person's attention to such a degree, that the French are no longer spoken of." The wish to see prodigies naturally terminates in the belief of them, and the report of the Madonna miracles soon reached Florence. Some withered lilies, placed before an image of the Virgin, were found next day blown ; and the Archbishop Martini, thinking this a favorable occasion to give himself importance with the multitude, went in procession to transport the pre- tended miraculous image to the metropolitan church. From that time, the Archbishop Martini became the apologist for, and propagator of, all the miracles ; in which he reposed not the least faith .' but it was a certain method of keeping up the ignorance and su- perstition of the people, and of enabling him, by this means, to let loose their fanaticism, which it was very easy for him to direct according to his interests or de- sires of vengeance. Of two of these pretended miracles, we give the titles. It is remarkable that it was always before the entrance, or after the departure of the French troops, that the miracles took place. While Tuscany was in the pos- session of the Republicans, the laws of nature were carefully respected by the saints, and by the souls of the other world. 1. '-'An apologetic letter respecting the apparition of a Spirit, which happened in the month of August, 1800, near the Hills of Rosan, not far from the city of Florence, written by the curate of Villamagna, with FEMALE CONVENTS, 207 the approbation of the Archbishop Antoine Martini. Florence, 1800, with licence." This was the spirit of a female peasant, who appeared, we are assured, in a meadow to a shepherdess to ask her for some paters and aves, which she said she was in want of, in order to get out of purgatory. As many as ten thousand persons at a time repaired to the spot to find the shep- herdess, who maintained that she had seen the spirit 2. " A succinct account of the miraculous production of oil, which took place, or was discovered, May, 1806, in the monastery of Maria degli Angeli and Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, at the intercession of Maria Bar- tolommea Bagnesi, a Florentine virgin of the third order of Dominic, authentically confirmed by a decree of the Archiepiseopal Court of Florence, December, 1806. Florence, 1807, with approbation." The eager devotion of the Florentines, who were all desirous of procuring the oil of the lamps of Bagnesi^ exhausted the convent. Santa Pazzi, its abbess, created seven barrels at a time. The Queen Regent of Etruria has- tened, at the first intelligence, and got herself anoint- ed. Martini guaranteed the miracle, and the faithful prostrated themselves. These unworthy means, however, did not succeed •• and Rome, theocratic as it was, found herself, after all her efforts, forced to become a democracy. Ricci sin- cerely lamented the fate of the Pope ; but not wishing to range himself with either party, he retired to his villa, occupying his leisure only with pious books, and in the composition of others, up to the time when the French took possession of Tuscany, March, 1799. Ricci, speaking of the changes which had taken place at Rome, recently become a democratic Republic, says, that he never doubted " that this great good, of which we are now spectators, would happen to the Church. ....... The opprobrious name of Court is at length abolished ; the haughty monarchy is now anni- hilated. Would to God that all the old despots of the Vatican lived contemporaries with Pius VI., because, chastised in their own pride, they might prepare them- 208 SECRETS OF selves better than they have done for their passage into eternity !" He gives an account of the fanatical tumult of the Roman populace, especially that part of it on the other side of the Tiber, against the Republicans, to the cries of " Long live Marp, religion, and the Pope ."' Many lives were lost in it. " What most astonishes me is, that this revolt has been entirely the work of monks and priests. A Capuchin, the ringleader of rebels ! These are terms that fanaticism alone is capable of reconciling." In a pamphlet by Joseph Giusti, July, 1801, is the following picture of the situation of Tuscany : " The irruption of the barbarians brought along with it the triumph of ignorance, superstition, anarchy, and crime. The priests taught to cover every crime with the veil of religion. The vilest wretches planned the fatal plot, the object of which was the annihilation of religion and virtue : and a usurping Senate brought back into our country the dreadful time of Tiberius — nothing was witnessed but scenes of horror. " The most irreproachable men of all classes and conditions, honorable and peaceable citizens, virtuous patricians, upright magistrates, brave soldiers, respect- able ecclesiastics, all men of a superior talent, the glory of their country, and who in numberless instances had merited well of their country, perished wretchedly either by the blow of the assassin, or at the stake planted by fanaticism. Others were arbitrarily arrested and drag- ged before a tribunal of cannibals : there, without the least shadow of justice, without proofs against them, without the means of defence, they were subjected to the most infamous penalties, to the gallies, to im- prisonment iu fortresses, and to banishment. Others, finally, who had with the utmost difficulty and danger escaped from their ferocious persecutors, took refuge in foreign countries, there to lead a wandering and wretched life, carrying with them the cruel recollection of the tyranny of an iniquitous government, and of the ingratitude of their fellow citizens. Above thirty FEMALE CONVENTS. 209 thousand families were victims of these proscriptions ; and Ferdinand saw with complacency, from the centre of Germany, the ruin, despair, and extermination of the best of his subjects. " All idea of morality was overturned ; the public in- struction was poisoned at its fountain-head, and every idea of humanity and justice was annihilated. Insur- rection, anarchy, and massacre, were openly preached by the ministers of the sanctuary, were represented as conscientious duties by a thousand inflammatory wri- ters, and were authorized and encouraged by the Go- vernment itself. "Such was the state of Tuscany, in October, 1800, on which day the approach of the Republicans forced the most notorious authors of these excesses, cowardly to take to flight, leaving Tuscany to be governed by their own sub-delegates, the only instructions given to them being, to endeavor as much as possible to keep up the system which they had themselves established. ' Those creatures of a fugitive General and Regency — creatures, whose authority was contrary to all the rules of policy respected by the conqueror after the oc- cupation of Tuscany, continued to foment the popular fanaticism, and to prepare the country for a general rising. But French generosity was at length exhaust- ed, and it was resolved, if necessary, to join to the old governors three persons more worthy of confidence." After having seen the crimes of the insurgents of faith and legitimacy, it will be well to observe the solicitude of the Government to reward their horrible services. " Circular instruction to all the commissioners crea- ted by the decree, Motu 'propria, of February, 1800." The decree of last February declares, that his Royal Highness has established a commission, charged with examining the merit of the individuals who have, during the insurrection of the Aretines, or after they had exhibited this great example, given proofs either of military valor or of political prudence, by giving birth to, fomenting and exciting the rising against the 18* 210 SECRETS OF enemy in any of the provinces of the Grand Duchy. The said commission will draw up an account of the deeds which have rendered illustrious, during this pe- riod, not only the town of Arezzo, but also all the other towns, boroughs, and villages of Tuscany, pointing out the names of persons the most deserving of reward, as well as those who have lost their lives during that in- terval. Ricci happened to be at Florence at the time of the entrance of the French troops, and therefore could not retire to his villa, as the new Government had directed that no one should be allowed to leave the city, in or- der to prevent emigration. This compelled him to be a witness of the fanaticism of Leopold's Government. The insurrection of Arezzo was a grand event for that party. Religious enthusiasm made the rebels elect the ■pretended miraculous Madonna their generalissimo ; and under her standard, they followed the Republican stragglers, whom these wandering hordes massacred without mercy, and plundered with safe consciences. The image of the Virgin urns the standard of assas- sination, and robbery ! The band directed their steps towards Florence, where Ricci's name was already at the head of a list of victims to the monks, the priests, and the grandees, formed before the arrival of the hordes of Arezzo. The Leopoldists were especially in danger ; and the insur- gents came twice to the villa of the prelate, where they hoped to find him. They failed, however, in their search at that place, but the unfortunate Bishop was arrested at his house in Florence, in July, 1799, and next day transferred to the prison da Basso, where the French prisoners were confined, and where they were treated by the Aretines with so much inhumanity, that the prelate, in their mutinies, often ran the risk of be- ing massacred. The Aretines had no sentiments of hatred towards Ricci, of whom they had perhaps never heard ; and he thought he might probably obtain his release by writing to the Archbishop of Florence and the Bishop FEMALE CONVENTS. 211 of Fiesole, to explain his situation, appealing to them as one of their brethren. The dark counsellors of Martini advised the Archbishop to pay a visit to Ricci, and to try by threats, promises, or reproaches, to en- gage him to a recantation of his opinions, and thus to remove from him all that was left him — his honor. Martini followed this advice ; and after describing to Ricci the dangerous feeling in the public mind, he recommended him to accept the Bull Auctorem Fidei; and concluded by reproaching him with the sanction he had given to the civil constitution of the French clergy, &c. Ricci began to be intimidated, and asked counsel of Martini himself, who, seeing what might be made of the prisoner, paid him a second visit, in which, with extreme mildness, he urged the same arguments, which gained over the unfortunate prelate so far, as to lead him to consent to write a letter declaratory of his co- incidence with Martini's opinions. This document, however important to the defenders of the old abuses, was not regarded as strong enough. Martini took it upon him to say to Ricci in what it was deficient ; and the Bishop had the weakness not only to yield, but to request that Martini would correct the letter in his own way. After this was obtained, Martini refused to take any concern in RiccVs affairs : he even refused to send RiccVs letter to the Pope, and altogether ceased his visits to him ! The ex-Bishop was detained nearly a month at the fortress da Basso. The excesses committed by the Aretines had roused even the indignation of the Germans, for whose advan- tage they committed them. General Klenau ordered them to quit Florence, under the pretence that they were required to raise the siege of Perugia, which was still in the power of the French. But they liked better to pillage the Jews, and to remain in excellent garri- sons ; accordingly they said openly, that as they had fulfilled what they styled their glorious mission, they had no reason to march farther. They soon however 212 SECRETS OP dissolved, as it was likely, from their want of disci- pline, they would. The commandant of the fort where Ricci was con- fined, finding no charge against him, ordered his liber- ation ; but the Senate of Tuscany seemed to have aroused all the fury of the brigands of Arezzo ; for when Ricci, after recovering from his prison malady, went to visit the Archbishop of Florence, the latter, after cruelly boasting of the absolute authority which had been granted him over the arrested ecclesiastics, told him that the people were not well pleased to see him at liberty, and recommended him to retire to any convent of the capital which he might choose. Ricci proposed to go to the Fathers of the Mission ; but they were cowardly enough to refuse him. He next chose the Convent of the Dominicans, at Mark. Here Ricci was treated exactly like a prisoner of the Inquisition. He had only a miserable cell allowed him; all the comforts of life were refused him; the monks fled from his presence, and he could scarcely obtain the privilege of saying mass in one of their private oratories. This was an inner chapel, which the Dominicans of Mark had caused to be magnificently constructed and embellished, in honor of Savonarola, close to the little rooms which had formerly been his cells. Over the entrance-door is still to be read this Latin inscription : " Has cellulas Ven. P. P. Hiero- nymus Savonarola, vir apostolicus, inhabitavit." — " These cells were inhabited by the apostolic Hierony- mns Savonarola." During his stay at the Convent of Mark, the Bishop of Pistoia made some extracts from the manuscripts which he found in the library, relative to that heretic saint ! Amongst others, is a letter written March, 1495, by the magistrates of the Republic of Florence, to Richard Becchi, its ambassador at the Court of Pope Alexan- der VI., to thank him for the pains he had taken to procure permission that Savonarola might continue to preach in their capital. Mention is therein made of FEMALE CONVENTS. 213 "falsities and calumnies which envious and wicked men are continually inventing and disseminating abroad, respecting Brother Jerome Savonarola. Not only, add the magistrates, has this brother been attacked, but we ourselves have been strongly sus- pected, as you write us, of suffering Brother Jerome, in his sermons, to speak to us in no very honorable terms, and without any respect in public, of the Church, and of our Lord, the Pope. Wherefore it appears to us just, as it is necessary, to let you clearly understand, that Brother Savonarola, in his sermons, has never to this day overstepped the limits traced by propriety, and which a kind of tacit convention generally opposes to the boldness of preachers. This, however, does not prevent these orators from condemning vices in gene- ral, pointing out the errors of the great, and making sinners tremble, by a lively and seasonable description of the Divine punishments which threaten them. If Brother Jerome had, in the least degree, exceeded the limits of which we have just spoken, in all which con- cerns the sanctity of our Lord, we would not have permitted him on any account to have preached in future." In April of the same year, the magistrates wrote to the Neapolitan Cardinal, the patron of the order of Dominic, that they had so great a veneration for the Prior of Mark, Brother Savonarola, that they thought they could do no good thing, unless exhorted to it by that monk. " For the piety of this man is admirable, his life spotless, his doctrine excellent. But what is above all that can be said, a still rarer merit, and one which we equally acknowledge in him, is, that he is inspired by a Divine spirit. He has not only predicted the common and ordinary things which have hitherto happened to us, but has forewarned us, in his sermons, of the most extraordinary events, such as we could have least expected, long before they took place. It is impossible to express how useful his sermons are to us, as much for the salvation of our souls, as for the tranquillity of our Republic." 214 SECRETE OF A third letter from the Florentine magistrates is addressed to Pope Alexander VI. himself, entreating him to allow Savonarola to reside among them. It is the most honorable testimony of the piety, learning, purity of morals, and holiness of life of Brother Jerome, and a refutation of the calumnies invented for his de- struction. This letter is dated September, 1495. Then follow the fragments of some letters from Anthony Magliabechi to Theophilus Spizelius, a Pro- testant minister of the Church of Augsburg: " With respect to the accusations against Savonarola, they are futile, and without the least foundation. As a man, as a Christian, as a monk, as a preacher, he was compelled to take part in public affairs ; for all was hastening on to ruin ; and not only were the morals much relaxed, but even atheism triumphed so auda- ciously, that many writings, whose sole object was to turn the Holy Scriptures into ridicule, were printed over and over again, such as the Sonnets of the Canon Pulci and others. Thousands of holy men have done the same thing, in times much less demanding their interference than those in which Savonarola lived. " To say that he was desirous of courting interest and favor, is one of the greatest falsehoods ever heard. Had he desired honors, he would have flattered the House of Medicis, and the Sovereign Pontiff Alexan- der VI., who had promised him, if he retracted, a car- dinal's hat. " The trial of Savonarola now in circulation, is falsi- fied and garbled. That was the reason why it was not read in Savonarola's presence — a circumstance which scandalized the people much, but in which his judges took not the least concern. I have made every possible effort to get a sight of the genuine trial, but always in vain. Patriarca, who was employed in the fiscal chamber, and who had all these documents in his trust, told me he had seen in some old memoirs, that this trial had been immediately taken away, and that the enemies of the monk had either torn it in pieces, or burnt it. They then published an interpo- EEMALE CONVENTS. 215 lated and altered trial ; and in order to prevent their fraud from being discover ed, they destroyed the real one, in order to remove every possibility of comparing the two trials, and discovering their iniquity /" In the midst of the Bishop's sufferings, Pius VI. died. Martini advised Ricci to write to his successor; and one of the Dominicans engaged the Nuncio to visit him, in order to procure a dishonorable recantation of all his opinions. Ricci refused the Nuncio's inter- ference : the latter withdrew in anger. Martini was jealous of the Nuncio, and refused any longer to inter- est himself in the fate of his colleague. The health of Ricci was visibly injured, owing to the suspense in which he was held, and the perfidy of his pretended friends. He also heard that it was at the Archbishop's instigation that the Dominicans re- fused to allow him to officiate in their Church, thus authorizing the Florentines to regard him as a danger- ous heretic, a person to be shunned. However, he bore all patiently, and passed the greater part of his time in the library or his cloister, in perusing the works of those fathers who most coincided with his opinions. Under these circumstances, instead of receiving any assistance or consolation from his family, he was per- secuted even by his own brother, the Senator Ricci, who finally succeeded in suspending the payment of the pension assigned to him by the Grand-ducal Government, till after the decision of his trial. All these vexations had such an effect on the spirits of Ricci, that his physicians, dreading a long and danger- ous malady, applied to the Senate for permission to have Ricci transported to his country-house, as good air and quiet were the only remedies for his disorder. The Senate declared that they had never given any orders for the arrest of Ricci. The physicians then addressed themselves to the Archbishop, who had always pleaded orders from Government to that effect; but he referred them again to the Senate, as Ricci's affair regarded a prisoner accused of revolutionary 216 SECRETS OF opinions. This was the first time such an accusation had been made ; for Martini had assured the Bishop, when detained at Basso, that he was only suspected of erroneous opinions on religion. But the difficulties made by Martini to Ricci's en- largement, were not the only ones he had to encoun- ter ; for his brother required that, before allowing him to quit Mark, all the examinations should be gone through of all the persons suspected, about 32,000, in order to be sure that the Bishop was not implicated with some of them. This delay must have occasioned the death of Ricci, had not some senators, less cruel, taken advantage of the temporary absence of Martini, to set the Bishop at liberty on the following condi- tions, and allow him to return to his villa : — That he should leave the convent in the night.- — That he should only stay a few hours at his house at Florence. — That he should not keep up any corres- pondence whatever. — That he should promise to yield himself prisoner, whenever he should be required by the Senate. The extensive correspondence of Ricci would natur- ally alarm the tyrants, who could only work in that darkness to which they are indebted for their existence. The following singular letters bear testimony to the truth of what we advance. Isacarus, a Bethlemite, wrote to Ricci from Rome, March, 1798. He requests Ricci's answers to Marchetti's Annota- tions Pacifiqnes. He then complains of the persecu- tions to which he is himself exposed at Rome, from priests who were there called good Christians, but who were in reality only Freethinkers, espr its forts. From Caietan Victorin de Faria, a Paulist monk, at Lisbon ; 1798. Faira was a Brahmin, and was con- verted to Catholicism. His wife being dead, he and his two sons entered into the priesthood at Genoa ; his third son was made Deacon. All four went over to Lisbon, where they lived in the convent of the Paulists. FEMALE CONVENTS, 217 " The regular clergy in India," says he, " have be- come, towards the end of the 18th century, what the bonzes were at Japan : the nuns were the disciples of Diana, and their nunneries seraglios for the monks; as I have proved to be the case in Lisbon, by facts which I have produced respecting those nuns, who were more often in the family-way than the common women." " The Jesuits made themselves Brachmans in the Indies, in order to enjoy the privileges of that caste, whose idolatrous rites and superstitious practices they had also adopted." He then explains in what consist- ed the principal privileges which the religious mem- bers of that society had acquired by this means ; namely, "of having free ingress to all the Indian Courts ; of being never put to death for any crime whatever ; and of enjoying the favors of every wo- man who pleased them, it being commonly received, that a Brachman priest sanctifies the woman whom he honors with his attentions." The Paulist monk speaks from experience, for he had himself been a Brachman before embracing the Christian religion. Ricci had scarcely arrived in the country when he recovered his health. He wrote to Martini, who replied only by a few lines, requiring a recantation. Ricci replied, that he was still of the same opinion he had expressed to him and in the letter he had written to the Pope ; and concluded by professing the purity of his intention in all his reforms, and expressing his regret if they should have been premature or the cause of scandal. Martini replied, that he had not had time to read the long letter of Ricci, but urged him to write to the new Pope. Ricci was grieved at the way in which he was treated by his former colleague, but promised to follow his advice as soon as the new Pontiff should be elected. After this, for several months he continued an iso- lated being, shunned by every one, and persecuted by his enemies, who wished to deny him even the conso- lation of performing his devotions in the church. This 19 218 SECRETS OF tyranny lasted a year; and then they began to prepare false documents, and bribe false witnesses, to support their accusations and justify their ill-treatment of Ricci, on his approaching trial at Florence. The Archbishop wished to have Ricci condemned as a person guilty of holding antimonarchical opinions ; but if this should fail as was likely, he reserved to himself the right of sending him to Rome to be punished by his natural enemies. On his trial, 'impunity was promised to the guilty of all descriptions who should make any accu- sation against Ricci! He was to be found guilty, in some way or other ; but in spite of these infamous and illegal proceedings, the Chancellor was obliged to acknowledge that there was no crime proved against R. His persecutors were not yet satisfied : he was not yet set at liberty ; for they adjourned the trial in order that their victim might not escape them ; and this proof of their malignity gave a shock both to the health and mind of Ricci, which he did not recover for the remain- ing ten years of his life. The wretched intrigues employed to disturb the last moments of Abbe Mengoni, who spontaneously and publicly declared his orthodoxy and unalterable attach- ment to the unity of the Church, proves to demonstra- tion that the spirit of the Court of Rome and its agents, is the same in all times and in all places, and that it avails itself of the most trifling circumstances, as well as of the most important events, to extend the fatal influence of that ignorance and fanaticism, upon which is founded the Papal power. Canon Joseph Mancini, now Bishop of Massa, and at that time Vicar-general of the Archbishop of Flo- rence, commissioned a priest named Mini, a speculat- ing theologian, to avail himself of the weakness of the sick man in order to obtain a recantation. The formula he was required to sign, contained the acceptation of all that had been determined upon at the Council of Trent ; of all that the Church had decided upon respecting grace and free will ; the Bulls of Pius V., Gregory XIII., Urban VIII., Alexander VII., &c, FEMALE CONVENTS. 219 and especially those known by the names of Unigeni- ius super Soliditate and Auctorem Fidei ; the confes- sion of the belief that the Pope has the precedency in honor and jurisdiction over all the Church, and that the Roman Church is the mother and mistress of all the others ; finally, the condemnation of the errors of the incredulous and licentious in matters of religion, in the same manner as they are condemned by the Church, as well as that of the propositions anathema- tized by the said Bulls, in the same plain and natural sense as has hitherto dictated anathemas of the Sove- reign Pontiffs. Abbe Mengoni resisted ; and having learnt, by the reports spread among the people at the instigation of his vindictive colleague, that he was made to pass for an excommunicated person, to whom the Archbishop even intended to deny the administration of the viati- cum, he wrote to that same Archbishop, October, 1815, and said, that he not only had always been, and still was a good Catholic, but that his most earnest wish was to die in the communion of the faithful, in which he had always lived. He wrote the same day to the Vicar Mancini, and asked him "if he required him to disgrace himself by a falsehood, by confessing himself guilty of a crime, of which indeed he was accused, but which he was convinced he had not committed : a circumstance which no one could know better than himself." Morali, the then existing Archbishop, insisted upon obtaining the required retractation, which it was hoped might be coupled with that of Bishop Ricci, in order to complete the victory gained by the Court of Rome. Seeing, at length, that all his efforts were useless, he dared not take farther advantage of the restoration of legitimacy in his country. The Abbe Mengoni re- ceived the viaticum from the hands of his confessor, the Curate of Gervais. The Prior of Marco Vecchio alleged many frivolous excuses to avoid performing this office, and requested the curate to be his substi- tute on the occasion. $20 SECRETS OF Another retractation took place ; that of an Abbe Panieri, a canon of the cathedral of Pistoia, who con- demned and reproved the doctrine which he had taught under Ricci, concerning the sacrament of marriage and the dispensations from ecclesiastical hindrances. This retractation, written by the canon's own hand, March, 1S20, was addressed by him with a letter to Marchetti d'Empoli, the apologist for the miracles at the close of the last century, which were both imme- diately printed at Rome, by De Romains, with permis- sion of the higher powers ; and several hundred copies were sent to Florence. It did not, however, succeed in stirring up ancient feuds for a long time forgotten. The Government, aware of its turbulent intentions, ordered the packet to be seized on the frontiers, and committed to the flames. As soon as he heard of the election of Pius VII. as Pope, Ricci, who knew the moderation of his disposi- tion as Cardinal, conceived some hope of a termination to his sufferings. He wrote a letter to the Pontiff, in which he expressed his entire submission to the Apos- tolic Chair, and the Pope occupying it, and justified his opinions as orthodox. His letter was dated March, 1800. Gonsalvi, the Pro-secretary of State, acknowledged the receipt of this letter, but made no reply to its con- tents. The answer was deferred for ten whole months, — an interval which was not unemployed by the ene- mies of the Tuscan prelate, who did every thing in their power to render Ricci odious to the new Pope. The Florentine Senate was equally active in prepar- ing contradictory evidence of all kinds against Ricci ; and the Nuncio, thinking the opportunity favorable, in- sisted that the Government should send him to Rome. It was precisely at this time, that the " menacing letter" of Gonsalvi arrived. It required of Ricci a recanta- tion of his errors, and those of his Synod — his ac- knowledgment of the Bull Auctorem Fidei — of pro- found submission to the Pope, and a confession of his repentance. The Nuncio's secretary, who delivered FEMALE CONVENTS. 221 the letter, was to add to it verbally, that the contents were known to the Tuscan Regency, who urged the ex-Bishop to comply with its demands, under pain of being given up to the Nuncio, and shut up for life in the Castle of Angelo. Ricci was unwilling to declare all the acts of his episcopacy improper, seeing that they had all been sanctioned by the Grand Duke. He communicated his scruples to the Government, but no answer was ever given ; so that he must have been betrayed into the snare laid for him, had not the victorious French re-entered Italy, and saved him from the danger. This was the more imminent, as Ricci was now rather dis- posed to diminish the concessions he had made, than to make others. Eleven days before the French entered Florence, he received a copy of the political accusations made against him : to which he replied immediately by a letter, in which he protested his attachment to his Prince, and complained of the sufferings he had en- dured so long. On the entrance of the French into Florence, Octo- ber, 1800, all the persecutors fled, together with the Pontifical Nuncio, who was at their head. That emissary had been charged to extort from Ricci, with the aid of the Tuscan Government, a dishonorable re- cantation of all his acts and opinions ; but times had now changed, and fear of the victorious French led him to write a very mild letter to Ricci, requesting merely a simple assurance of his submission to the Pope. This he immediately complied with, adding his acknowledgments of entire accordance with the Roman Church in matters of faith, and his abhorrence of schism. He occupied his time during his respite from persecution, in preparing a reply to the Bull Auctorem Fidel, in which he proved, that this Bull only con- demns what was condemned by the Synod of Pistoia. The weak Austrian Government of four was, about that time, replaced by a French triumvirate ; who, as soon as they discovered the 32,000 processes and accu- 19* 222 SECRETS OF sations, condemned them to be publicly burnt. Ricci's was sent to him, and " from it," says he, " I discovered that I had been detained at Mark's by means of the Archbishop of Florence. Nihil tarn occultum quod non revelabitur. — Nothing is so hidden that it shall not be revealed /" The French Government expressed the utmost esteem for the person of Ricci, and regrets for the unworthy persecutions of which he had been the victim. Ricci demanded an acknowledgment of the falsehood of the accusations against him, which the Secretary of the Crown could not refuse. He then re- tired to his villa, where he employed himself in his usual occupations, with country amusements, and in the improvement both of the face of the country, and the indigent laborers on his land. CHAPTER XI. Louis I., King- of Etruria. — Treaty with the Pope for Ricci. — Their Reconciliation. Ricci had formed the best opinion of Louis I. of Etruria ; but that King, entirely governed by his courtiers, Ventura and Salvatico, instead of showing the philosophical virtues which had been ascribed to him, appeared from the time of his entry into Florence a bigoted fanatic and tyrant, whose character soon re- vived the popular murmurs which had before disturbed the capital. The public was menaced with all the dangers which could result from the evil influence of the Capuchin Turchi, a prelate as violent and ambitious in his ex- alted station, as he had been mild and reasonable as a priest. He had signalized his episcopacy by seditious homilies, which had been published at Parma, against the ecclesiastical reforms of the Grand Duke Leopold, FEMALE CONVENTS. 223 and Ricci. The new Court, on entering Tuscany, appeared to take no step without expressing its wrath against this devoted land. The ancient Bishop of Pistoia had no reason, therefore, to be astonished, on finding himself refused, by the Counts Ventura and Salvatico, the audience which he had requested them to obtain for him from the King their master. The latter, on hearing the name of Ricci pronounced, had already, with some degree o£ naivete, asked his courtiers if it was Ricci the heretic. Scarcely had the reign of ignorance and impotence thus commenced, when Rome boldly preferred all her former pretensions to authority. The Nuncio Morozzo imperiously demanded of Ricci the accustomed recan- tation. The Government produced a plan for an In- quisition of the Faith, on the same footing as the fero- cious Inquisition of Spain ; it was proposed that the reading of controversial works should be forbidden, and that the partisans of the ancient reforms should be driven into exile. Happily for Tuscany, the French Minister at Florence never ceased exclaiming against, the absurd measures of this unenlightened and impru- dent Government. The fear which his influence oc- casioned, prevented the monks from precipitating their designs, and raised an insurmountable obstacle to the machinations of the Nuncio against the ex-Bishop of Pistoia. This, however, could not prevent the publication of the law of April, 1802, which the fanatical party had taken care to keep secret, in order to avoid opposition. This law had for its end the destruction of all useful reforms and the ruin of all reformers. It abolished at one blow the ecclesiastical rules, of whatever kind they were, which had been published since the time of the Emperor Francis I. They loaded the Govern- ments which had shown any inclination to religious reform, with the most injurious epithets. They de- prived the Prince for ever of all power and influence over the persons and possessions of the clergy ; they took from the bishops their legitimate and inalienable 224 SECRETS OF spiritual authority, to give them a temporal authority which they can and ought never to possess ; they ex- posed the Tuscans to the twofold despotism of the Roman Court ; they declared the reforms which had been made in Tuscany to be illegal and heretical ; and lastly, the Inquisition of the Nuncio's jurisdiction was established on a firm and indestructible base. It is difficult to describe the alarm which the unex- pected publication of such a law occasioned. The ministers of France and Spain, however, firmly resisted measures which, as well as the principles which had dictated them, were so opposed to the treaty recently concluded between the French Republic and the Court of Rome. But the blow was struck ; the only thing which was gained by the public disapprobation, was the universal contempt of the law, and the proof which was given, in the eyes of all Europe, of the weakness of the Prince who had introduced it. The law of April was not revoked, nevertheless, the ancient eccle- siastical laws of the Grand Duchy, although abrogated by the new disposition of the Sovereign, remained in full vigor and activity ; and the Minister, who sought to restore the deplorable times of Cosmo III., was unable to resist them. Fanaticism lost about that time her two principal supports in Italy, the Duke of Parma, and Turchi, the Bishop of that city. Louis of Etruria survived them but a short time ; he died March, 1S03. The Queen Maria Louisa was declared Regent during the minority of her son. " Without experience, vain and bigoted, and above all, entirely dependent on the former ministry, and on the intriguing and ignorant. Morozzo, the Nuncio, she desired nothing so much as to form a close alliance with them, in order to found at Florence a Catholic Academy, the design of which was to maintain what they called the purity of the faith in the capital and throughout Tuscany, and which took for its rules those of the Holy office itself. It was composed entirely of the enemies of Leopold's reforms. Their first endeavors were to abolish the decrees FKMALE CONVENTS. 225 and the laws relating to discipline and education, which had been established by that Prince, and for which they substituted superstition with all its attend- ant follies. This frightful commencement gave notice of opera- tions still more disastrous, and of a destructive activity which nothing seemed able to resist. France and Spain hastened to publish an order for its being abo- lished ; and. on their proclamation the Catholic Aca- demy was dissolved. The ministers of those two powers were at the same time directed to represent to the Queen that she must moderate a zeal as pernicious as it was ill advised. Ricci, who again saw himself delivered from the evils which menaced him, regarded his safety as a mi- racle, which he attributed to the manifest protection of Catherine, his relative ; and to testify his gratitude, he associated her as patron with the tutelary Saint of the Church of Rignana, which he repaired on the occa- sion, and greatly beautified ! Not content with these external signs of his personal devotion to Saint Cathe- rine de Ricci, he endeavored to animate the devotion of the people, and composed hymns in her honor, which were sung by the superstitious. Scarcely had the Queen learnt this, when she con- ceived a better opinion of the ex-Bishop of Pistoia than if she had been really convinced of his being the most enlightened and the most virtuous of men. She began by suspecting that he was not irrevocably lost ; that it was yet, perhaps, possible for him to be recon- ciled with the Pope, for till that period she had thought, with the generality of her subjects, that he was an in- fidel. To form this hope, and the wish to succeed in the project of mediation, was the same thing with Ma- ria Louisa. And she prepared her way by a measure as strange as the project itself. She ordered prayers to be made in several convents, that Heaven would soften the heretical heart of the prelate : lastly, she persuaded the Pope to come to Florence, as he return- ed from his journey into France to crown Napoleon. 226 SECRETS OP This circumstance gave rise to another, which com- pleted the comedy. Pius VII. was in close league with the Arch Duchess of Austria, the foundress of a con- servatory of girls called Paccanaristes, in Rome ; and having spoken of the invitation he had received from the Queen of Etruria. and of the desire which that Princess manifested of having Ricci received into his good graces, the mystical Arch Duchess conceived a wish to play a part in this pious enterprise. " The Arch Duchess was hy nature ingenuous, but was seduced by those who surrounded her. She was under the spiritual direction of Paccanari, an ex- Jesuit, a man immoral, intriguing and unenlightened." The proof of these assertions has been furnished by Pius himself, who was obliged to suppress the conservatory of girls which Paccanari had instituted and supported at the expense of the Austrian Princess, while Pacca- nari was confined to a convent for the rest of his days. The Arch Duchess addressed a letter to Ricci, Octo- ber, 1804. In this she accuses him of having led Leo- pold to do many things inimical to the interests of true religion. She assures him that he had occasioned the eternal destruction of many ; and exhorts him to seek his safety by throwing himself at the feet of the Pope, with her letter in his hand. Ricci replied by a letter full of dignity and respect, in which he endeavored to undeceive her with regard to Leopold. " The inten- tions of that great Prince, your father," said he, " were as pure as the greater part of his actions were visibly and eminently directed towards the good of religion." With regard to that which personally concerned him, Ricci contented himself with saying that he had con- stantly lived in unity with the Church, before which he had often protested, and should again be willing to offer, his submission ! The Pope returned no answer. He had formed the resolution of terminating this affair by a perso- nal interview with Ricci. The Queen of Etruria assured the latter of the pleasure his reconciliation with the Pontiff would give her. Ricci immediately FEMALE CONVENTS, 227 proceeded to the Queen, thanked her for the interest she took in his affairs, and promised to present him- self before the Pope, as soon as he should arrive at Florence. Ricci had great confidence in the Pope, especially after what had occurred in France. He reflected not that it is precisely when the Court of Rome is obliged to yield to the powerful, she increases her op- pressions of the weak, to compensate in some measure, by her excessive despotism on the one side, the sacri- fices she is obliged to make on the other. The Pope, well prepared for the character he in- tended to play, arrived at Florence, May, 1805. Three days after, on the eve of his departure for Rome, he sent the Vicegerent to Ricci's residence to assure him of his desire to embrace him, which, however, he gave him to understand, could not take place unless Ricci signed the declaration which the Vicegerent presented. This formula required him to declare that he accepted from his heart and soul the apostolical constitutions passed against Baius, Jansenius, and Qxiesnel, from the Pon- tificate of Pius V. to the present time ; that he espe- cially accepted the Bull Auctorem Fidei, and that he desired this declaration to be made public. It is impossible to describe the trouble into which Ricci was thrown by this unforseen circumstance. He had time neither for private reflection, nor for con- sultation with his friends. All his representations to the Vicegerent were of no avail. The only reply that he could obtain was, that there was no longer any room for discussion ; that he must at once submit himself to the Pope, or never after expect a reconciliation. Some hours passed in the inexpressible misery of deliberations, hesitation, and anxiety, till at length Ricci decided, at the instigation of his friends Palmieri and the Abbe Fontani, the only persons present at this deplorable scene, that he would yield to the unfortu- nate necessity of the times. He mournfully obe}red those persuasions so foreign to the dictates of his own heart, and gave, for the love of peace and unity, a proof 223 SECRETS OF of feebleness, the dishonor of which had been concealed as much as possible ; he gave it to free himself for ever from the persecutions of ignorance and fanaticism, which were every day gaining an increase of power in Tuscany. The following are some of Ricci's reflections written after the event, October, 1805, and which prove that his energy failed not on this occasion through any of the motives which generally render the inconstancy of men in their language or conduct culpable. The opinions of the ex-Bishop remained throughout the same ; his apparent change, and it is his best excuse, procured him neither places nor honors, for which he had no desire. He lost by this conduct the esteem of the men whose regard he most valued, and he did vio- lence to his own conscience ; but this same conscience, which never spoke to him in vain, persuaded him that he ought, at the price of any sacrifice, to cease to be the cause of discord in the Church and of scandal to simple believers. It was a false idea of Christian hu- mility, a virtue productive of the most amiable graces, but compatible with and favorable to the highest virtues of fortitude and resolution, which had the greatest influence in leading him to this step. The two friends of Ricci had also considerable influ- ence in bringing him to his decision. " They per- suaded me," says the Prelate, " that the Pope had de- termined to conduct me to Rome as an obstinate rebel, if the affair were not brought to an immediate conclu- sion. They knew the character of the Cardinals who exercised the chief influence over the Pontiff; and they saw me exposed to the most imminent peril, without protection or support." Ricci, having signed the deed, which was immedi- ately carried to the Pope, was directly conducted by his order to the palace, where he was then residing. Pius VII. received him with considerable tenderness. Ricci hastened to protest the unalterable purity of his intentions and his views, especially those which re- garded the assembly of his Synod, in which he intended FEMALE CONVENTS. 229 to support those propositions in an orthodox and Catholic sense, which had been condemned as taken in a heretical one by the Bull Auctorem ; and he then presented the Pope a declaration which he had written and signed in testimony of the truth of these assertions. The Pope read it attentively ; and in returning it to him said, that it was not at all necessary, and that he was convinced of all that the Bishop had said. " He added, that, since no one could know my internal feelings, and since I had declared that my opinions had always been Catholic, the subject ought no longer to admit of a doubt : and that he should himself be in future the defender of Ricci's orthodoxy and honor, and that he should support them at all times, and wherever he might be." During this conversation, the Queen of Etruria and the Confessor Menocchio entered the apartment where Ricci and the Pope had met. Both of" them compli- mented Ricci on his reconciliation with the Holy See, which gave occasion to the Pope's Confessor to observe, that the Synod of Pistoia was the sole cause of all the revolutions which agitated Europe, and that the Bishop had done well in agreeing to its condemnation. Ricci thought it right not to make any answer to a proposi- tion as ridiculous as it was misplaced. That Confessor of Pius VII. passed for a saint, and even for a saint endowed with the power of working miracles. It had been reported, that, on his first jour- ney to Florence, in his way to Paris for the coronation of the Emperor, he had performed a miracle on a man afflicted with an hitherto incurable malady ; but this prodigy having had only a momentary effect, the im- portance which had been given to it vanished with the influence he had on the disease. The Pope showed himself very sensible of the pains which Ricci had taken to clear himself from having supported the obnoxious articles in the sense in which they had been condemned by the Bull Auctorem ; and appeared inclined to change the words, for a remedy of the scandal^ into these,/or general edification. But 20 230 SECRETS OF Menocchio, abusing the influence which he possessed over the Pope as his spiritual director, prevented this change ; " because," said he, " the Synod of Pistoia was guilty of the total overthrow of discipline, and of the opposition which was then made to religion." Of the motives which determined Ricci to sign the declaration, it is said: "he was firmly resolved to ex- culpate himself from the accusation of his not believing in the Pope, which his refusal to vist him, would have confirmed beyond doubt. Besides which, Ricci was pressed by the Queen Regent, who ardently desired to effect, through any means, a reconciliation between them. He considered that, had he refused, he should have every thing to fear, and that he could only ex- pect either a new imprisonment, or a perpetual exile, as the consequence of persevering in what was called schism, or of his wounding the pride of the Princess, by making her negotiation useless. On the other hand, the Pope had manifested his determination to cut short all disputes, and he had the declaration drawn up as the only method of terminating the difficulties. Ricci, who was an ardent lover of peace and unity, believed it to be bis duty to sacrifice his self-love in an act of submission and obedience, which would not in any way wrong the depot of faith. " He reflected, that, if he yielded on some points of discipline, he did but accommodate himself to circum- stances. These had totally changed ; it was necessary that a man should change with them, and that, still desiring to effect good, he should be willing to seek it by other means more adapted at the time to effect his purpose. "He reflected, above all, that, being reduced to the station of a private man, he ought to give up the inno- vations and reforms which he had made as a Bishop, without the consent of the Pope. It had been told him that the whole Church was in opposition to him, and he therefore submitted his will to the decisions of the Bull Aiictorem, that he might not appear an ambitious and obstinate innovator." FEMALE CONVENTS. 231 The news of his reconciliation with Pius VII., pro- cured him a great number of visits and complimentary letters from all the prelates of Tuscany. The public, from that period, shewed him the most distinguished esteem and veneration. But he hastened from that universal attention, which had no charms for him, to the solitude of his country-house. There he learnt the judgment which was pronounc- ed on the decision he had taken. Some saw in it only a proof of inconstancy and feebleness; others regarded it as a true recantation and abjuration of his errors. Ricci cared for neither : but considered that he ought to be judged more according to his intentions than his actions. It was with the same feeling that he wrote to the Pope, May 1805, to compliment him on his return to his capital, to ratify anew his declaration, and to protest his sincere submission and gratitude. His part was irrevocably taken ; nothing could make him recall a determination of this kind. Since he had sacrificed his conscience, it was a proof that he believed the resolution indispensable. He was blamed for it by those who considered his recantation as the unworthy price of a few years' inglorious repose : he was praised for it by those who considered it a true and praise- wor- thy conversion. He merited neither the praise nor the blame ; he knew that he had no want of conversion, and he expected not any worldly peace on the part of those who had troubled his tranquillity and happiness. Deceived with regard to the true state of the Church, Ricci sincerely desired to serve the cause of religion, but he perceived not that the Court of Rome made use of him only for its own purposes. The ex-Bishop of Pistoia, without doing any good, was the cause of much evil which his adversaries did in his name, and he lost the reputation of that firmness and strength of soul, of which he had given many brilliant proofs during his career. In a moment he destroyed his own work. His enemies, freed from all fear, had now only to mention Ricci as the submitted and repentant child of Rome. — Ricci the courageous and enlightened reformer of Tus- 232 SECRETS OF cany ! After having been the scourge of the in- triguing, and terror of the hypocrites, he finished by becoming their sport and their dupe, and by furnishing them with arms which he had so often broken in their hands. CHAPTER XII. Ricci's Recantation— Illness— and Death. Different was the conduct of the Pontiff from that of the persecutors of Ricci, and, among others, of the Cardinal Gonsalvi, who repaid the efforts of the prelate to confirm the reconciliation, with harsh and severe treatment. Pius VII., when Bishop of Imola, and " when Tuscany labored for the reorganization of its ecclesiastical regime, through the care of the inde- fatigable and sage Leopold,— Pius VII., who, as is ge- nerally known, did not see with an evil eye the spirit of the new legislation of the Grand Duke," would not expose himself by condemning in others, what he had formerly approved in himself. Scarcely had the Pontiff received the letter from Ricci, than he charged Fenaja to thank him in his name, and to promise him an answer from his own hand. The letter of the Pontiff contained expressions of joy, which their reconciliation had caused him, in consequence of the sincere adherence of the prelate to all the sentences emanating from Rome against Jan- senism and the Synod of Pistoia, and, above all, the spontaneous confirmation of the declaration which he had signed at Florence. In speaking to Ricci of this, the Pope added malignantly: "Bv which act you de- clare that you condemn all the evil you have done." The consistory was held in June. Pius VII., after having given an account to the Cardinals of the affairs FEMALE CONVENTS. 233 of France, passed to that of the ex-Bishop of Pistoia. He related what had taken place at Florence, during his last abode there, and reported the precise terms of the declaration which the ex-Bishop had signed : but the Pontiff, in relating the protestations which Ricci had made at their first interview, said that the prelate had assured him that, '• even in the midst of his errors, his mind had always remained attached to the ortho- dox faith and to the apostolic see ;" and since his re- turn to Rome, Ricci had written to him to ratify " the recantation made at Florence." Ricci openly accused the Cardinal Gonsalvi of the base design of having wished to persecute him, even after his entire defeat. " Cardinal Gonsalvi," says the unfortunate Bishop, " was very much piqued at my affair having termi- nated without his interposition or approbation ; and habituated as he is to treat the Pope with a superiority which does not belong to him, I do not doubt but he has made known his vexation." The Pope's answer to Ricci's letter was sent from Rome, to the Pontifical Nuncio in Tuscany. The Nuncio paid the ex-Bishop of Pistoia a visit, " and by order of the Cardinal Secretary of state, he wished," said Ricci, "to make me feel the general disapproba- tion caused by my letter to the Pope, as if it had been a proof of my dissimulation in regard to the signature of the formula. He added, that the Pope was very discontented with it ; that he wished to make me feel his indignation ; that the reconciliation had been on the point of being destroyed, but for the observations which the Pope had made on my letter in his address to the consistory. Finally, he told me, always how- ever, in the name of the Secretary of state, that the Pope was kind, and that he had been surprised ; but that I must pay attention and regulate my conduct with circumspection for the future." Ricci answered these vain menaces with a smile. He proved to the Nuncio that Pius VII. was perfectly satisfied with what had taken place, and he proved it 20* 234 SECRETS OF even by the letter of the Pontiff, which was written in the most obliging and flattering terms. " At length," says Ricci, " having taken a more se- rious and decided tone, I informed him that M. the Cardinal offended me ; that my rank, the education I had received as a Christian and a citizen, and above all, the character which I possessed, made me abhor with detestation, every kind of dissimulation and false- hood. I made him understand that the affair had been begun and completed by the Holy Father himself, with the intervention of the Q,ueen, and that he had not been surprised into it." Having thus succeeded in proving that the Pope fully approved his conduct and sentiments, and that he had clearly made this known by his letter, as he had also done to the whole Church by his address to the consistory of Cardinals, notwithstanding the ex- pressions by which a hoslile hand had found the means of disfiguring those two convincing proofs, Ricci re- quested the Nuncio to give particular attention to a passage in the letter of Pius VII. thus worded :— "Would to Heaven you had long ago put us in a situation to afford you this consolation. If we our- selves had been alone personally concerned, it would have been afforded you long before. We have been always disposed not only to press you to our heart, and to receive you with all possible tenderness into our favor, but we have always most ardently desired it, and we only waited for that one indispensable requi- site to our reconciliation, which you have at length decided to afford us." " I might say/' continues the ex-Bishop, after having read this passage to the Nuncio, "that my first letter to the Pope, written March 1800, to compliment him on his elevation, was never presented ; I might add, that the uncivil reply which the Cardinal Gonsalvi made me in the name of the Pope, was given un- known to the Pontiff, and was conceived in opposition to his maxims and sentiments ; that it was fabricated by a person who produced a false letter from me, en- FEMALE CONVENTS. 235 lirely different to that I had written, that he might ad- dress me an injurious reply, and one full of all the animosity and abuse which a base mind and an igno- rant man is capable of conceiving." Ricci contented himself with answering the Nuncio in this dignified manner. Silence and resignation were now the only arms he could oppose to his enemies ; for had he used others, he would have aided their de- signs, and at once produced a fatal rupture with the Roman Court. The direct correspondence between the ex-Bishop of Pistoia and the Pope, rendered all the endeavors of his intriguing persecutors vain. When the prelate received the last letter from the Pope, he called on the Nuncio. " He told me," says Ricci, " with much politeness, that he did not doubt my sincerity, and that he could not conceive why the Cardinal Secretary of State continued, to insist upon the necessity of watching my conduct. I answered by a smile ; and I asked if it was very warm at Rome 1 This indifferent question disconcerted the Nuncio a little, who, from that time, never entered into a similar conversation." Religious studies became Ricci's chief occupation. He composed some theological works ; among which were, " Des Considerations sur les Epitres de Paul, sur l'Oraison Dominicale," &c. &c. The interest which he took in promoting the worship of Catherine de Ricci, who, says he, had so ardently contemplated the myste- ries of our Saviour's passion, induced him to ask of the Pope himself a plenary indulgence for the festival of that Saint. Ricci's letter was written January, 1806 ; and he received an answer from the Pope in February following, granting him all he had asked. He thought of nothing from that time, but of cele- brating, with the greatest pomp, the feast of the Saint, his relative. He had prayers printed for the people to address to her, and he added instructions for the de- vout, to merit the pontifical indulgence ; he had medals struck with the image of Catherine, and pious inscrip- 236 SECRETS OF tions and prayers upon them, to be distributed among the faithful. It is scarcely possible to recognise in this idolatrous conduct the enlightened co-operator of Leopold, and the eloquent author of the discourse against the abuse of indulgences, pronounced at the assembly of the Tus- can Bishops. Those superstitious triflings of Ricci had not stifled his virtues. He conducted himself with much great- ness of soul towards the family of Senator Ricci, ever since the death of his brother, who had for a long time shown himself the most fanatical of his persecutors. He was very bountiful to the poor ; but his fortune was considerably decreased by the union of Tuscany with the French empire in 1806. Ricci felt his end approaching. He wished again to enjoy the country; and lest he should be taken ill un- awares, he arranged his affairs, and made his will, before quitting Florence. He was scarcely settled at his villa, before he had two severe attacks of epilepsy, which caused so much fear for his life, that he returned to Florence. There he appeared to regain his health and strength, when suddenly his malady returned with more violence than belore. Humors, which at first covered the whole of his body, at length fixed in his legs, and made him suffer severely. His patience, resignation, and gentleness, during a long illness, and dreadful sufferings, edified every one who approached him. The religious feelings which he evinced during his last moments, convinced those, who had hitherto doubt- ed it, of the sincerity of his belief. But he showed no remorse for his past actions, he never spoke of his re- forms, and he was only heard to implore the pardon of God, for having mixed any human motives with the maxims which had guided him during his episco- pacy. The author of the life of Ricci answers those who accused the prelate of being alone in his reformations, FEMALE CONVENTS. 237 and appropriating rights to himself, which belong ex- clusively to the Holy See. . He proves that the reforms which had been undertaken, related to certain abuses existing in Pistoia and Prato, which kept the people in ignorance, superstition, and fanaticism, and nurtured the ambition, avarice, and dissipation, of both the high and inferior clergy, — abuses indeed, which, when Ricci had lost all influence, were extirpated for the most part, to the great contentment of pious and rational people, the rest seeming to take no interest in the affair. " In these latter times," says the writer, " we applaud the opinions and maxims which were received with horror as the actions of the Synod of Pistoia ; and we now pursue in tranquillity, and even with zeal, a consider- able number of those same reforms which were detested at the epoch of that assembly." CHAPTER XIII. Survey of the Life and Prelacy of Ricci. The education which Scipio de Ricci received in childhood gave his mind a devotional character ; but the cultivation of his reason and temper would not allow him to become either fanatical or grossly super- stitious ! He was born a Roman Catholic, and destined for an ecclesiastic. His reflections upon the Pontifical Court, which he visited, — a servile, intriguing, and egotistical court — are precious from the mouth of so sincerely obsequious a priest ; his refusal to make a fortune through it, when he entered on the career of the prelacy, shows the disinterestedness of his noble mind. He wished to remain an honest man. Ricci assisted in the destruction of the Jesuits, whom he detested as a political body, whose existence threat- 238 SECRETS OF ened governments and kings, corrupted the morality of the people, and prostituted religion. He beheld among them the falsifiers of holy doctrines, the satellites of the monstrous Papal monarchy, the enemies of every one whom they could not make subservient to their ends, and the poisoners of Ganganelli. From the time he was named Vicar-general of Flo- rence, he manifested his firm intention to be a patriot priest, ever ready to second the Prince who then reign- ed for the happiness of Tuscany. The first proof which he gave of it, was by co-operating in the repub- lication of books which unveiled the ambition, lusts, infamy, and crimes of several Popes, — books which Rome had condemned, as irreligious and impious. When he became Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, he traced out with severity the line of his duties ; and remained constantly and courageously attached to it, till the fury of his enemies obliged him to quit the diocese. The commencement of his episcopal government was the origin of all the evils which he suffered to- wards the close of his life, and of the persecutions under which he sank. He had irritated the powerful and dangerous body of monks ; and by attacking their privileges, and unveiling their turpitude, he threaten- ed the Court of Rome with the loss of the greatest number, and the most zealous, of her emissaries : from that time his ruin was decided. A philosopher would have tolerated the superstitious worship of the sacre cceur, added by the Jesuits to pre- ceding superstitions, till human reason complaining of it, should confound it with the mummeries already consecrated to ridicule. A philosopher, if he had known the cloisters to conceal individuals of both sexes, who had vowed to violate the laws of Nature, and not to fulfil the duties of society, would have considered it of very little importance, whether these persons lived according to the strange rules of their order or not, or whether they preserved the chastity they believed to be agreeable to God. FEMALE CONVENTS. 239 But Ricci was a Catholic from his infancy, and his office as pastor obliged him to inspect the religious opi- nions of his sect. The worship of the sacre cc&ur was an abominable idolatry in his eyes, so much the more dangerous, because it was introduced by the authors of every error, those destroyers of morality, the Jesuits ; to whom it was destined to give credit and power. He could not behold, without horror, the disso- luteness of manners in the convents of the Domi- nican nuns, where the monks of that order openly taught atheism, encouraged the most disgraceful li- bertinism, and filled them with impurity, sacrilege, and debauchery of every kind. He could not help expressing his indignation at the indifference of the superiors, of the chief of the order at the Court of Home, and against the Pope, who, though they had been for a long time instructed with regard to those turpitudes, refused to take any step towards putting an end to them. Had he not every reason to conclude that those people must be of a different religion to him- self, and to despise them, because they pretended to persecute him on account of his zeal for that reli- gion ?» What religious soul would not shudder at seeing immorality thus added to profanation, and corruption bringing forth impiety ? By tolerating these crimes, the Pope plainly announced his indulgence of them ; but by encouraging their commission, he made himself an accomplice. The hatred of the numerous party, whose interest it was to keep up these abuses, did not prevent Ricci's continuing steadily in the route he had marked. Doing away with several pernicious practices, he labored con- stantly to make the language of religion more respect- able, and his priests, men of exemplary conduct, fa- thers of the people. He intended to instruct them in their conduct, and to console them under their misfor- tunes. Animated by these holy views, be banished itinerant missionaries, and improved the catechism enjoined by the Court of Rome, which increased the 240 SECRETS OF favor of the multitude for the absurd prerogatives of the Papacy. Ricci was tolerant, because he was a just and reason- able man, rather than a blind reformer. This was to contradict himself as a Roman Catholic, but the time was come when such inconsistency was inevitable. Ricci, who detested the conduct and opinions of the two perverted nuns of his diocess, detested still more the cruelty of the Archbishop Martini, who had used violence to convert them. The decree of Leopold for abolishing even the In- quisition in Tuscany, was attributed at the time to the Bishop of Pistoia — the greatest praise which could have been given to that philanthropic pastor. Public instruction was a great object with Leopold and Ricci, as it is with all true friends of humanity. The Bishop labored more particularly in forming enlightened and wise ecclesiastics ; because through them the people would gain knowledge, and the peace and prosperity of the State would be ensured as the natural result of good management. Pistoia had its ecclesiastical academy ; and if the studies of the regular monks had been reformable, the activity of Ricci, excited by the exhortations of Leo- pold, would have introduced a better method of in- struction. Bat the monks, were only ignorant, and inclined to evil, and attached by interest to the Court of Rome, which supported them by numerous sacrifices, as being its most devoted and redoubtable soldiery. Having endeavored to correct them, to make them useful priests, and good citizens, was a great crime in the Bishop of Pistoia ; and in order to destroy this dangerous enemy to error, efforts were made by the Court of Rome, and by the monks, to assassinate him. The establishment of the ecclesiastical patrimony caused no little uneasiness at Rome. Some of the ministers, whose salaries were thus made entirely in- dependent of its influence, began to lose sight of its interests in their desire to diffuse the principles of mo- rality and religion. This revolution, as desirable for FEMALE CONVENTS. 241 Tuscany, as it was inimical to Rome, whose grandeur and elevation were established on the servility and blind adulation of all around her, seemed by the un- remitted care and exertions of Ricci, about to produce a speedy and important improvement. Not content with merely instructing his clergy on the inalienable rights of the civil power, on those of the clergy, and on the usurpations by which Rome had weakened both the one and the other ; he showed them still farther by his example, how those rights should be restored to their legitimate possessors, more espe- cially as the Prince who then reigned in Tuscany, made it an imperative duty. Authorized by the Government, which Ricci recognized as the only power possessing the right of regulating the civil contract of marriage, Ricci dispensed with many points deemed essentia] by his diocesans ; and no longer permitted the Roman Datary to possess any authority in Tuscany. The priests, deprived of their ecclesiastical perqui- sites, were thus also divested of all their temporal juris- diction, of all authority in secular affairs ; and were obliged to submit with resignation, by the example of the Bishop himself, who voluntarily renounced privi- leges which had been accorded to the clergy in ages of barbarism and ignorance. The object nearest Ricci's heart, was the deliverance of the clergy from the influence of the Court of Rome; and he exposed to the Prince the abuses of the oath of fidelity, which the Pope requires of every Bishop when he grants his Bulls. With regard to most of them, this oath is a fatal bond : it retains them in the most deadly opposition to all legislative measures, which, having no other object than the happiness of the people, would diminish the overgrown authority of the Holy See. With these designs constantly in view, Ricci used every endeavor to enlighten his diocess by the diffusion of such books as seemed most calculated to produce this effect. Many of these taught them to controvert the idea of an infallible authority; and demonstrated to 21 242 SECRETS OF them the absurdity as well as the injustice of the greater part of its boasted procedures. The reforms in the diocess of Pistoia alarmed not only the Court of Rome, but the Tuscan ministry ; it was incessantly employed in alleging difficulties, and inventing obstacles to disgust the - Grand Duke with the idea of innovation ; but it saw all its attempts overthrown by the skill and attention of the Bishop. They feared, at the same time, the penetrating observa- tion of their master, and that of the public, which the new legislation had awakened to reflection. This was to sap the very foundations of despotism and ignorance ; but, notwithstanding the efforts of the Prince, they continued perseveringly in their machinations. The similarity of interests between the Tuscan Ministry and the Court of Rome, formed the band of an alliance, the principal effect of which was to pro- long the evils of humanity, by perpetuating the dark- ness in which its enemy stood protected. The vain and haughty aristocracy hastened to take part in a league, which promised them the preservation of all the prejudices on which their exorbitant privileges were established ; and Ricci, thus in open war with the Pope and his monks, the nobility and the Govern- ment, had no support but the esteem of Leopold and a good conscience. But the projects of the Grand Duke and the Bishop, induced the natural enemies of reform to concentrate their means of attack and defence, and dispose them to the best advantage against their courageous and in- defatigable adversary ; whilst the latter, by incessantly unveiling their chicanery and incapacity, exposed them to the anger of the Prince, and to the irreparable destruction of themselves and their evil influence. Ricci was not deceived by the majority of the priests, to whom he restored their dignity and their rights, while he resumed his own. The populace alone remained exposed to the intrigues, and to the powerful means of corruption, which the ministers, the nobles, and the emissaries of the Pope brought into action. Ricci's FEMALE CONVENTS. 243 success deceived Leopold. He committed the inexcus- able error of inviting to his councils the dignified clergy of Tuscany ; a body necessarily interested in resisting the intentions which he had manifested to effect their good ; and he imprudently furnished that dangerous party with an occasion of making their opposition popular, and of openly professing them- selves to be the support and guide of the wandering multitude. The issue of the ecclesiastical assembly of Florence was the signal of a tumult at Prato. This popular rising was repressed without trouble ; but the example was given ; the multitude of hypocrites and fanatics had seen how easily superstition inflames a people long subdued by despotism. Rome dared to conceive the vast plan of arming the people against all sove- reign reformers of abuses. Already had her projects been made manifest in the affairs of Belgium, where she preached the sovereignty of the people, to the great profit of avaricious monks and imbecile nobles, as well as her own. The revolt of several Tuscan cities was fomented in the same manner, and by the same agents. That of Prato was followed by another at Pistoia, which was only appeased by the flight of Ricci, by the abolition of the religious reforms which he had established, and by the restoration of all the abuses of superstition and servility towards Rome. The same spirit extended to Florence, where the minister lost no time in completing his work of darkness. He effected his design without trouble. Fanaticism everywhere obtained a complete victory, and brought back in triumph her usual com- panions, Ignorance and Superstition. During these events, the French revolution took place ; and from its commencement the eyes of all Europe were riveted too closely on the spectacle it pre- sented, to be diverted by any object of minor interest. Rome seized the opportunity for persecuting Ricci, who was enjoying the repose he had obtained by the resignation of his diocess. A Bull, a monument of bad 244 SECRETS OF faith, was issued against him. Bnt, although far from the world and its storms, Ricci conceived himself equally obliged to assist his brethren who were ex- posed to their fury, and all his decisions were a new homage to sincerity. Thus, in answer to some ques- tions from France, he replied, that the clergy ought to take the national oath prescribed by the representatives of the people ; and that the people should regard the priests so obeying, as their legitimate spiritual guides. Rome and Tuscany were, at that time, under the power of the Republican arms, which they had brought against them by their crooked policy. Ricci lived in voluntary exile, but was forced from his retreat in the most unjustifiable manner. Some brigands took pos- session of the Tuscan capital in the name of the Emperor of Austria, and the pretended miraculous Virgin of the city. They committed every excess, and every crime, of which the fanaticism of priests, or the folly of an imbecile government could be guilty. The ex-Bishop of Pistoia was thrown into prison, with all the partisans of Leopold, and with every Jansenist who had not sacrificed the interests of his country to the despotism of Rome. The long list of persecutions which Ricci had suffered, show the infamy of his per- secutors, their intrigues, their machinations, and cruel- ties. Nothing was neglected to satisfy the implacable vengeance of Rome and its partisans, and to sooth the vanity of the nobles whom Leopold had driven into the obscurity to which nature had condemned them. Whilst the persecutions were at their greatest height; Ricci, by turns flattered and menaced, wearied by measures the most adapted to exhaust the patience and courage of an isolated old man, attacked on the most feeble side, which his unsuspicious soul offered to his cunning and malignant enemies — Ricci was by degrees prepared for an act of condescension, to which he would never have consented, had he been able to see it under the same light in Avhich it appeared to his best friends. The victories of the French in Italy had snatched FEMALE CONVENTS. 243 the unfortunate Bishop from the Court of Rome, which regarded him as its prey ; but soon after, the Tuscans, sacrificed to a deplorable policy, became by the most illegal measures, the allies of a weak and superstitious despot, of a wild and extravagant woman, and of a mi- nister equally devoid of talents and virtue. Rome, ex- isting but by evil, and only triumphing in darkness, hoped to regain in Tuscany all the ground she had lost. The abolition of the liberal institutions of Leo- pold and the French, and the establishment of the abuses which had been extirpated, preceded the fall of Ricci. Overwhelmed with evils without end, terrified by preceding atrocities, seduced by every thing which could make him mistake a feeble for a virtuous action ; he signed an instrument, which he believed was but consigning the past to forgetfulness, but which his dis- sembling enemies took care to convert into a condem- nation of his whole previous conduct, and of the mo- tives which had directed it. The humiliation of Ricci was the only thing of which Pius VII. could boast, on his return to Rome after the coronation of Napoleon. After this circum- stance, the ex-Bishop led a languishing life, till death put an end to his sorrows and his misfortunes. The entire life of Ricci was a continued series of attacks against the Court of Rome, whose pretensions to the inprescriptible rights of governments and of people, and its spiritual despotism over the clergy, he never ceased to combat. He unmasked its hypocrisy, he exposed its ambition, cupidity, intrigues, and cabals, and citing it before the bar of the civilized world, in the name of reason, justice, and religion, he menaced it with near and inevitable destruction. It was utterly impossible, however, that any agreement could exist between a power which flattered, caressed, and exalted the Jesuits, by every means it possessed, and a prelate, who exposed their pernicious system of morality, their principles subversive of society, and their dangerous practices of superstitious devotion. The zeal of Ricci, while only Vicar-general of Flo- 21* 246 SECRETS OF rence, for the re-establishment of ecclesiastical studies, according to a more rational plan than that in vogue, was another vexation, which the Court of Rome was not more ready to pardon than his contempt of the Je- suits. All the doctrines which they received were fa- vorable to a system of that universal priesthood they had contributed to establish, and to the power of the Popes, which they sustained. Every attempt against the scholastics and the modern casuists, was an act of hostility against the Court of Rome. Every attempt to direct the attention of the clergy to the Holy Scrip- tures, and to give some authority to the canons and the fathers of the primitive Church, was a breach made in the temporal authority of the Pope. It was a victory over those pretensions to spiritual infallibility, which are continually contradicting the words of those fathers who lived before the invention of this absurd dogma. The same observation may be made in respect to Ricci's activity in circulating good books, " which," said this enlightened Bishop, " all the world ought to be acquainted with, as the province of truth is the patrimony of all men without exception." His whole episcopacy was a train of operations to exalt learning, and to furnish materials proper for its successful pur- suit. But that which most of all tended to confirm the enmity of the Roman Court against Ricci, was the affair of the Dominicans of his diocese. Having prov- ed to the whole world that the false or forced virtues of the monks and nuns are but a tissue of hypocrisy, and most frequently become a stimulant to the most odious vices ; having shown that the institutions called Virgi- nales were generally schools of corruption and liber- tinism ; having at length brought to light the infamous viciousness of the soi-distant tribunal of penitence ; these were unpardonable crimes in the eyes of one, whose existence as well as authority depended on the blindness of men who yielded themselves to the impu- dent jugglers that surrounded his throne. But how FEMALE CONVENTS. 247 much was this enmity increased, when the activity of Ricci made it appear that the nuns, the monks, their superiors, even the chief of the order, and the Pope himself, not only tolerated these disorders, but took no measures to arrest the Dominicans in their incredulity, impiety, and atheism, or to prevent their every day adding new victims to those they had been making for nearly a century and a half! Ricci openly assumed the ensigns of opposition to the Roman Court. He frankly entered into a league, the ranks of which were soon filled by all who consid- ered the existence of Rome incompatible with the actual state of society, and even with the existence of the religion on which the Popes founded their authority. Ricci was in public correspondence with this party, scattered through France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. He was nominally so with the Church which the Jan- senists had established in Holland, and which, by offer- ing its friendship to Rome, amply revenged the ana- themas hurled against it. Now Rome could not refuse this offer, from any other motive than because she was determined to trouble every State in which the Roman clergy were recognised as the spiritual guides of the people, and the Pope as the absolute chief of the clergy. All the exertions of Ricci seemed to render him odious to the bigoted Papists. The reclaiming of his Episcopal rights, which had been usurped by Rome, and the restoration of those of the Cures, were dan- gerous examples to the other prelates, who had any idea of the democratic organization of the principles it inculcated, menaced the Popes with a revolution which would make them, the brothers of Bishops, the brothers of their cures ; and which, by depriving them of the power of riches they had so long enjoyed, would render it necessary for them to obtain virtues and talents, which could alone make them the first among their equals. The project of making the monks useful as priests 248 SECRETS OF and honest citizens, as also that of reforming the cate- chism, tended to deprive the Popes of their most fanat- ical emissaries, and to free religious persons from the danger of being deceived by their glosses and artifices. The plan of an ecclesiastical academy completed Ricci's system ; and that of the patrimony of the clergy deli- vered the pastors and their flocks for ever from all foreign interference. The purifying of public wor- ship from superstitious practices, was a consequence of this system, and was not less disagreeable to Rome than the other reforms ; for the mummeries with which the worship of the Church had been debased, formed a fruitful source of gain. Rome had not only to reproach Ricci with what he had thus done. She saw him voluntarily resign the excessive and abused authority which had been given to the bishops, as the heads of the ecclesiastical tribu- nals, called afficialites, which were entirely under the control of the Popes, to whom the former were bound by an oath, as anti-religious as it was anti-national. Ricci, to extirpate the evil, root and branch, boldly ex- claimed against this oath, "by which," said he, "bishops oblige themselves to obey a foreign prince /*' But the grievance which Rome made a reason for the most violent persecutions of its author, was his having reduced all his principles, maxims, and plans, into one entire system, which he got sanctioned by a synodal assembly of his diocess, and had formed into canons after the usage, recognised as regular and legal, of the primitive Church. This bold enterprise brought down upon Ricci's head the thunders of the Vatican, and persecutions which were directed sometimes by cunning, at others, by perfidy, violence, and cruelty. The superior clergy of Tuscany were united against him from the time that Leopold had convoked the ecclesiastical assembly. That prince, called to the imperial throne, only lived long enough to see his cherished work of Tuscan re- formation overthrown ; and Ricci exposed, without FEMALE CONVENTS. 249 defence, to the hatred of his enemies, who triumphed in the name of superstition and fanaticism. From that period, the ex-Bishop remained without authority, and in voluntary exile. When, worn out by long suffering, terrified by frightful menaces, and de- ceived by false promises, he was induced to condemn his past conduct, and sacrifice his reputation ; — when even the Pope himself felt touched at his humble resig- nation and self denial, even then his chief persecutors, the zealots of the party, would not leave their prey ; and the unfortunate Prelate, yielding at length to the maladies which had been brought on by the persecu- tions he had suffered, expired, after having experienced most of the evils which Popish vengeance could invent. The concurrence of circumstances which abolished the reforms of Leopold, and brought on the destruction of Ricci, produced important consequences in favor of Roman despotism, to which great credit was given in the eyes of the people, who seldom judge of enterprises but by their issues. The bark of Peter again floated into Tuscany on the waves of fanaticism, superstition, and ignorance. By an avaricious aristocracy, and a vain ministry, that bark — the sails of which were spread wider than ever ; thanks to those who too in- cautiously endeavored to sink it, and to the military chief who made use of it to help him out of the stormy sea of revolutions — appeared sustained on the waters by a supernatural power ; and it began again to inspire respect for every species of abuse. Liberty, who had shown herself for an instant, was soon banished, and the extraordinary man who, with- out chaining her entirely, had fettered her as much as his designs required, himself soon disappeared. Again the sacerdotal power obtained its full authority ; but what opprobrium too great can be cast upon men, who, united to their fellow-creatures neither by senti- ments, principles, interest, nor natural ties, seem to have only one object, that of deceiving them to despoil them ; that of terrifying them with a false character of the Divinity, that they may be venerated as his inter- 250 SECRETS OF preters, and of abusing them with an affectation of humility, that they may make them their servile fol- lowers ! Ricci is a proof of this. His memoir teaches us, not to regard the monastic life and the Roman Court as distinguished by the ordinary vices of men, but as rendered odious by the worst of crimes ; as not mere- ly affording much to excite regret, and rouse the bold hand of reform, but as a vast and terrifying system of the lowest debauchery and infamy. We see monks employing the name and authority of God to seduce the young females under their care, and their own nominally most sacred rites polluted by their attempts. Those priests stand before us as atheists ; not even re- garding, for a moment, any one of the natural move- ments of the heart in favor of virtue. The General of the order of Dominic, an order by whom so much innocent blood has been spilt, and which has precipitated so many estimable men into the flames, for venturing to declare they thought not as the Dominicans — the General of that order, in Ricci's time, was fully aware of the wickedness of which the latter complained. His indifference to them is sufficient evidence, that his opinions were in con- formity with the worst abuses, against which Ricci invoked the assistance of the civil power, whose first duty is to watch over the morals of the people. But the General and his Dominicans professed, in toto, la croyance an Pope — subjection to the Pope ; that they would commit any crime publicly^ to support the dogmas on which the pontifical authority rested, and the depraved instruments of which they in secret were. Ricci, by exposing the iniquities of the order, scandal- ized, but could not injure the Court of Rome ; and having been accused of not believing the Pop>e, his destruction followed as the consequence. The Pope himself was at the head of that dark con- spiracy against a bishop, whose greatest crime was his sincerity. Knowing, as well as the General of the Dominicans, the infidelity of the order, and its fatal FEMALE CONVENTS. 251 effects ; notwithstanding, he showed no feeling of hor- ror, and was equally enraged against the prelate, who sacrificed all human respect, honors, and advantages, to the interests of virtue. Such is the Papacy, which is again suffered to es- tablish itself; which men fortify again with its ancient and pernicious errors ; which is still surrounded with its fanatical and yet most dangerous adherents, the Jesuits ; and which is permitted once more to arm itself with the scourges, that have for so many ages degraded men, and devastated the world — the scourge of the ferocious and frightful tribunal of the Inquisition. This fatal blindness of several European governments to their true interests, this false policy, this spirit of baseness, which makes them prefer the passive sub- mission of a people, degraded by superstition, to the acquiescence of a free people in the policy of a prince, can hardly be conceived possible at such a period as this — a period which has been preceded by half a cen- tury, during which the examination of every question interesting to humanity and nations has been debated in the most profound manner. For the honor of humanity, we trust that the people at least will recoil from the chains of superstition again forged for their minds. Every species of liberty is fal- lacious, that is not founded on the basis of truth and knowledge ; for no human power can preserve men in a state of slavery, but when the belief is current, that some of their fellow-creatures are destined by Provi- dence to render the rest of mankind miserable. Let us suppose for an instant, that we could annihi- late the rising spirit of the times ; let us suppose in- fancy subjected to the Ignorantins, youth to the Jesuits, mature age to the Inquisitors,— what horrors would not follow ! How many steps would not civi- lization retrograde ! Who will deny, that the people have made immense progress in solid improvement, since the year 1789 ? Who does not believe, that the French at the end of the eighteenth century, were as much above those of 252 SECRETS OF FEMALE CONVENTS. the age of Louis XIV., as the wise and just Leopold was superior to the degraded Cosmo III. ? Why does not reform continue to proceed from the throne ? It was the duty of kings to continue the bril- liant reforms of the philosophical Joseph and Leopold. Unfortunately, in their time, the people were not pre- pared to receive their excellent systems ; but now, that they are so, will kings refuse to establish their freedom and happiness on the immovable basis of humanity and truth ? It was a Roman Catholic Bishop, who called for re- form in the time of Leopold, who confessed that this reform was absolutely necessary, because society was menaced with evils which demanded a sure and im- mediate remedy. His predictions have been verified. The people have been driven to extremity ; their go- vernments have resisted their just desires, and confu- sion has been the consequence. But the struggle is not at an end ; and whatever be the obstacles, the cause of justice and humanity must at length prevail. Why are there no more Riccis ? — why are the men who are moved by a like spirit, without power or in- fluence ? They would give new force to the benevo- lent religion of Christ ; a religion which a false zeal, a base superstition, and the intolerance of the priest- hood, have tended so materially to debase. A party which labors for the restoration of darkness and superstition, carries the germ of its own destruc- tion ; for the only base on which it could establish itself is wanting — the ignorance of the people. That change will take place ; but it has on the one side many obstacles to overcome, combats to sustain, and sacrifices to make ; on the other, there are many inte- rests to destroy ! But the whole subject resolves itself into a simple question : Is any government authorized by a divine law, to debase its subjects into ignorant slaves ; or any priesthood to convert them into imbe- cile monsters ? APPENDIX. A. — Page 1 "The history of monastics, " observes Mr. Mackray, " exhibits in full view the melancholy truth, that their hearts were corrupted with the worst passions that disgrace humanity, and that the discipline of the convent is seldom productive of a single virtue. The prelates ex- ceeded the inferior clergy in every kind of profligacy, as much as in opu- lence and power ; and, of course, their superintending and visitorial authority was not exerted to lessen or restrain the prevalence of those vices, which their evil example contributed so largely to increase. If a really pious, vigilant, and austere prelate arose amidst the general dissoluteness of the age, his single efforts to reclaim those solitary ecclesiastics were seldom attended with success. "Boccace, by his witty and ingenious tales, very severely satirized the licentiousness and immorality which prevailed during his time, in the Italian monasteries ; but, by exposing the scandalous lives, and lashino- the vices of the monks, nuns, and other orders of the Roman priesthood, he has been decried as a contemner of religion, and as an enemy to true piety. Contemporary historians have also delivered the most disgusting accounts of their intemperance and debauchery. The frailty, indeed, of the female monastics, was even an article of regular taxation ■ and the Pope did not disdain to fill his coffers with the price of their impurities. The frail nun, whether she had become immured within a convent, or still resided without its walls, might redeem her lost honor, and be reinstated in her former dignity and virtue, for a few ducats. This scandalous traffic was carried to an extent that soon destroyed all sense of morality, and heightened the hue of vice. Ambrosius of Canadoli, a prelate of extraordinary virtue, visited various convents in his diocess; but, on inspecting their proceedings, he found no traces even of decency remaining in any one of them ; nor was he able, with all the sagacity he exercised on the subject, to reinfuse the smallest particle of these qualities into the degenerated minds of the sisterhood. The reform of the nunneries was the first step that distinguished the government of Sixtus IV., after he ascended the Papal throne, at the close of the fifteenth century. Bossus, a celebrated canon, of the strictest principles, and a most inflexible dis- position, was the agent selected by the Pontiff for that arduous achievement. The Genoese convents, where the nuns lived in open defiance of all the rules of decency and the precepts of religion, were 22 254 APPENDIX. the first objects of his attention. The orations which he publicly uttered from the pulpit, as well as the private lectures and exhortations which he delivered to the nuns from the confessional chair, were fine models, not only of his zeal and probity, but of his literature and elo- quence. They breathed, in the most impressive manner, the true spirit of Christian purity ; but his glowing representations of the bright beauties of virtue and the dark deformities of vice, made little impression upon their corrupted hearts. Despising the open calum- nies of the envious, and the secret hostilities of the guilty, he pro- ceeded, in spite of all discouragement and opposition, in his highly honorable pursuit; and, at length, by his wisdom and assiduity, beheld the fairest prospects of success daily opening to his view. The arm of magistracy, which he had called upon to aid the accomplish- ment of his design, was enervated by the venality of its hand ; and the incorrigible objects of his solicitude having freed themselves, by bribery, from the terror of the civil power, contemned the reformer's denunciations of eternal vengeance hereafter, and relapsed into their former licentiousness and depravity. A few, indeed, among the great number of nuns who inhabited these guilty convents, were converted by the force of his eloquent remonstrances, and became afterwards highly exemplary by their virtue, but the rest abandoned themselves to their impious courses; and, though more vigorous methods were, in a short time, adopted against, the refractory monastics, they set all attempts to reform them at defiance. The modes, perhaps, in which their vices were indulged, have changed with the character of the age ; and, as manners grew more refined, the gross and shameful indul- gences of the monks and nuns have been changed into a more elegant and decent style of enjoyment. Fashion has rendered them more prudent and reserved in their intrigues, but their passions are not less vicious, nor their dispositions less corrupt." Such is the record of monastic profligacy and corruption; and, when we think how the monks were regarded by the people with the profoundest reverence, and, moreover, with what swarms of them Europe was filled — " friars, white, black, and gray ; canons regular, and of St. Anthony; Carmelites, Carthusians, Cordeliers, Dominicans, Fianciscans Conventual and Observantines, Jacobines, Remonstra- tensians, Monks of Tyronne and of Vallis Caulium, Hospitallers, or Knights of John of Jerusalem ; Nuns of Austin, Ciare, Scholastica, Catherine of Sienna ; with Canonesses of various clans," — we cannot entertain a doubt, that the contagion of their example operated with most debasing and corrupting effect upon the character of mankind. What must have been the condition of morality, when its professed teachers were so immoral ? What, in the view of the God of truth and purity, must be the turpitude of that system, or of that widely ex- tended institution, which, for more than a thousand years, spread ita unhallowed influence over a great portion of the world, and triumphed in the overthrow of all that is virtuous and noble in the character of aian ? B.— Page 14. At the period of the Reformation, learning had ceased to dwell in the solitudes of monachism. The age of darkness had passed away, never more to return ; the art of printing had unlocked the storehouses of ancient literature, and sent abroad their treasures for the good of APPENDIX. 255 mankind ; and thus there was not left the shadow of reason for the longer endurance of these incumbrances on the states of Europe j — and, pregnant as they palpably were with many very serious evils, there was the most urgent necessity for their removal. This the pro- gress of knowledge effected. These institutions, the birth of an igno- rant and superstitious age, fell before the brightness of the light of truth ; and, at their dismemberment, was unfolded more strikingly than ever had been done before their incorrigible depravity. Great have been the lamentations respecting the alleged outrages of the Reformation ; that literature will never recover from the disaster which it sustained by the loss of the thousands of precious volumes, which, with the monasteries that contained them, were, by the barbarous fury of the Reformers, consigned to destruction ; and that the demolition — occasioned by the Reformation — of the splendid edifices appropriated to monachism, inflicted a misfortune on the fine arts which is absolutely irretrievable. Those stately fabrics, it is said, the illustrious produce of immense labor and expense — on which all the taste and genius of the world were lavished, and which seemed destined to perpetuate through all time the triumphs of art, are now in ruins ; and the superb arches, the lofty columns, the moulder- ing walls, of those once glorious structures — the melancholy remains of such a magnificent creation of art and genius — present to the eye of the scientific observer, a scene of devastation, for which all the benefits of the Reformation will never atone ! Now, much of this expression of regret- is groundless, and with it we cannot sympathize. That the monastic libraries, at the time of the Reformation, were furnished with many — or, indeed, with any very valuable works, is a mere unwarranted assumption. For more than half a century had the press been in vigorous operation, and, during- that period, all in literature that was really valuable had been drawn from obscurity ; nor, distinguished as the Reformers were for their regard to learning, and, in several very splendid instances, for their literary acquirements above all their contemporaries, is there the smallest ground to doubt, that, if any of these literary monuments re- mained, they would have been the objects of their search and careful preservation. We have positive information respecting the state of some of the monastic libraries, which, in the absence of contrary evi- dence, may be regarded as a specimen of the condition of the rest. "In the life of Knox, the Scottish Reformer, we have an enumeration of the contents of several of these pretended receptacles of learning, which appear to have been despicable in the extreme. Legends of saints, pastorales, graduates, missals, breviaries, and other writings of a similar description, were the precious stores, for destroying which the Reformation has been branded with epithets of the most odious kind." c. AWFUL CONSEQUENCES OF PAPAL INFLUENCE AND PAPAL DOMINION. Proh Dolor ! hos toleiare potest Ecclesia Porcos Duntaxat Ventri, Veneri, Somnoque, vacantes? It is amazing that the Christian religion, whose characteristic is ove and humility, should be so far debased, aa to carry no other 256 APPENDIX. marks than those of cruelty and pride ; that vows of poverty should entitle men to the riches of the whole world ; that professions of chas- tity should fill countries with uncleanness ; that solitary anchorites should engioss the pomps of the city ; and that the servant of servants should become the king of kings ; but what contradictions are not designing men capable of, when the enlargement of their power is in view? For this end, auricular confession was introduced; a new hell of purgatory was invented ; and the power of creating even their own God, was blasphemously assumed. By these arts, came the secrets of families into the hands of the priests ; by these arts, they seized on the purses of whole nations ; and by these arts, they arrived to be idols of the people, who were glad to part with their estates, with their liberties, and their senses also, to these spiritual usurpers. Not to mention the follies of other nations. British chronicles in- form us to what a degree bigotry once prevailed, of which let this in- stance suffice. John Bab, an author of unquestioned fidelity, who was himself a Carmelite friar, informs us, in his acts of English Vo- taries, that in the year 1017, King Canute, by the superstitious coun- sel of Achelnotus, then Archbishop of Canteibury, was prevailed upon to believe that monks' bastards were his own children, and that Fulbertus, the old Bishop of Carnote in France, was even then suck- led by the Virgin Mary : nor did he stop here, but after having bur- dened the land with the payment of that Romish tribute called Peter's pence, he went to Winchester, where, by the aforementioned Bishop's advice, he formally resigned his regal crown to an image, constituting it then king of England ! Thus was a mighty king converted to be the tool of his priests, and thereby becarne the darling of the Church, whose practice then was, not only to feed upon the spoils of the people, but even to make their monarch a prey to their ambition. And in those times a prince acquired the title of good or bad, not from his conduct in the secular government of his subjects, but according as he was either more or less, a promoter of the grandeur of his clergy. Thus Canute, though an usurper and a tyrant could merit a canonization ; whilst John, from whom was received that great security of their liberties, the Statute of Magna Charta, merely for not encouraging the corruptions and spiritual tyranny of the Romish Church, was branded with the name of Apostate, and forced at length, by an usurping priesthood, to hold his crown as tributary to the see of Rome. "When the kings were thus managed, it is no wonder that the laity followed their ex- ample submitting their necks to the same priestly yoke. The reader will be curious to know, how the spiritual societies came to possess such prodigious temporal estates : for the amount of the property owned by the monks prior to the Reformation included from fourteen to seventeen parts out of twenty of the whole land of the dif- ferent nations. The first monks we read of were in the middle of the third century ; men whom the persecution of the heathen emperors compelled to live in deserts, and who being by a long course of soli- tude, rendered unfit for human society, chose to continue in their mo- nastic way, even after the true cause of it ceased. The example of these men was soon followed by a number of crazy devotees, who were so ignorant of true religion, as to think that their way to heaven lay through wild and uninhabited deserts, and who, finding that they had not charity enough to observe the precept of Christ, of " loving their neighbor as themselves," were resolved to APPENDIX. 257 have no neighbors at all ; thereby frustrating the design of Chris- tianity, which was to establish the good of society. The next monks were a set of worthless, but ambitious wretches, who, having no way of making themselves famous in the world, re- tired out of it ; where they reverenced idle ceremonies of their own institution, where the)' pretended conference with angels, with the Virgin Mary, and even with God Almighty ; not unlike Numa, the high-priest of the heathen Romish Church, who abused the people with stories of his nightly interviews in a cave with the goddess JEge- ria. At length, these holy cheats, to gain yet more veneration, began to practice on their bodies the most cruel severities, till at last they were worshipped by the thoughtless mob as saints : imitating, in some measure, the example of that heathen monk, Empedocles, who, to be thought a God, leapt into the burning mount iEtna. After this, designing men, who saw how great an influence these pretended saints had over mankind, took upon themselves the same exterior form of godliness, thereby not only to raise an empty name,, as the former had done, but to enrich themselves at the expense of the i deluded multitude. Hence flowed those many profitable reli- gious maxims : — " that to give to the Church, was charity towards God, and as such, would atone for a multitude of sins, were they ever so heinous, — that the Church was not the congregation of the faithful, as Paul fancied it to be, but the body of the priests : — that the priest, though ever so like the devil, was God's representative, and ought to be honored as such : — that there was such a place as purgatory, and that the prayers of monks like Orpheus' harp, was the only music that could mollify the tyrant of that place, who, being their very good friend, would release a poor soul at any time for their sake : that whis- pering all secrets in the ear of a priest, was the only cure for a sick soul : — that every priest had the power of pardoning all sins, except those only which were committed against himself; — that indulgences purchased in fee, could entitle a man and his heirs to merit heaven by sinning : — and lastly, that the priest could by virtue of a hocus pocus, quit scores icilh his Creator by creating him." These, and such like money-catching tenets, soon drew the whole wealth of the laity into the hands of these contemners of the world, and all its pomps and vanities ; who not only flourished in Egypt and Italy, where they first sprang up, but were spread through all Christendom, and began quickly to vie in power and riches with the greatest monarchs, even in their own territories, till, at last, kings and princes themselves, were proud of becoming monks and abbots. A minute detail of the divers religious orders which swarmed in all parts of Europe is unnecessary. The portraiture of those who de- voured and consumed Britain will exhibit a correct specimen of the whole fraternity. Benedictines. — The first of these that prevailed, was the order of the Benedictines, whose rule was introduced into Britain by Augus- tin the monk, in the year 596. The founder of this order was Bennet, who in his own life time erected twelve monasteries. The rules that he left behind him, although the papists affirm that they were dictated to him by the Holy Ghost, are stuffed with the most trifling and su- perstitious ceremonies ; and his whole seventy-three chapters contain but four wholesome precepts, two of which only, that relate to eating and drinking, his followers observe ; neglecting the other two, which are the fundamentals of their order, enjoining humility and poverty ; 22* 258 APPENDIX. for in his seventh chapter, Bennet assigns twelve degrees of humility for his monks to practice : which how well they comply with, you may rind by the humble titles of the abbots of Mount Cassin, the head monastery of his order, of which himself was first abbot! "Pa- triarch of the Sacred Religion, Abbot of the Sacred Monastery of Mount Cassin, Duke and Prince of all Abbots and Religions, Vice Chancellor of the kingdom of both the Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Hungaria, Count and Governor of Campania, and Terra de Lavoro, and of the Maritime Province, Vice Emperor, and Prince of Peace." In his fifty-ninth chapter, he enjoins poverty to all his disciples ; and in obedience to this rule, the above mentioned monastery of Mount Cassin have so renounced the world, as to be possessed but of " four bishopricks, two dukedoms, twenty counties, thirty-six cities, two hundred castles, three hundred territories, four hundred and forty vil- lages, three hundred and six farms, twenty three sea ports, thirty-three islands, two hundred mills, and'one thousand six hundred and sixty- two churches." This was their holy poverty ; and thus you may see how religiously these ten rules have been observed, and how spiritu- ally the followers of Bennet retreated from the world in Italy ; who were soon imitated in some of these kinds of holy self-denials, by their pious brethren in England, as you may learn from the vast num- bers of rich abbeys which the Benedictines possessed. These were the humble priests from whom King Henry II. received the discipline of eighty lashes, for having like an undutiful son of the Church, dared to contend in power with their patron Thomas-a-Becket, whose stirrup he had been obliged to hold, whilst that meek prelate mounted. As these monk3 began to be notorious to the world for their obsce- nities and luxury ; in the year 912, Oden Abbot of Cluny, took upon him to correct, their abuses, and gave rise to the Cluniacs ; who were the same year translated by Alphreda, dueen of England ; for who more proper to promote superstition than a zealous ignorant woman ! However, to show how thoroughly these men reformed upon Bennet's followers, especially in point of humility, they were not settled one whole century, before the Abbot of Cluny contested the title of Abbot of Abbots, with those of Mount Cassin. Carthusians.— The next order was that of the Carthusians, first established in the year 10S6, in the desert of Chartreuse in Grenoble, by one Bruno, who was thereunto moved by hearing a dead man cry out three times, " That he was condemned by the just judgment of God ;" which was a very plain precept for building monasteries ! This man professed to follow the rule of Bennet, adding thereunto many great austerities by way of reformation ; amongst others he ordained, that they ought to be satisfied with a very little space of ground about their cells, after which, let the whole world be offered unto them, they ought not to desire a foot more. This, they have construed to signify a foot more than the whole world : for their cells even in Bernard's time, became stately palaces, and their little spaces of ground, stretch- ed themselves into great tracts of land. They first settled themselves in England in the year 1180, and in a very short time had gained as much wealth by their vows of poverty as any other order. Cistercians.— They were so called from Citeaux, where they first assembled ; and soon after admitted Bernard for their head, whence they are styled Bernardines, who were another reformation upon the Benedictines. Bernard himself founded one hundred and sixty monasteries ; who APPENDIX. 25£ at first would have no possessions, but lived by alms, and the labor of their own hands ; which being too apostolic a life for monks, they soon grew as weary of poverty and industry as their neighbors ; and in a little time rivalled those, upon whom they pretended to reform, in wealth, luxury, wantonness, and such like monkish virtues. At their first institution, they wore black monkish habits, till the Virgin Mary, out of her great love to these fat friars, came down from heaven on purpose to reform their dress, as being the most essential part of their order. She appeared herself to their second abbot, bringing a white cowl in her hand, which she put upon his head, and at the same instant, the cowls of all the monks, then singing in the choir, were miraculously turned to the same color. Thus did the Virgin change the habits of the Cistercians from black to white, as they had before altered their lives, from a sad, melancholy retirement, to a merry, jovial society — black being no more fit for a jolly priest, than white is for a mournful penitent. Besides, the "old monk Satan" being represented as black, the Virgin was unwilling that her friends should be like him in dress, though they resembled him in every thing else. These locusts swarmed first in England, about the year 1132, and continued there in the exercise of their sanctity; a remark- able instance of which was their poisoning of King John at Swines- head, in Lincolnshire, an abbey of the Cistercian order. Canons. — There was another sort of religious order in the Church of Rome, who were called Canons. These were to live in common, and to have but one table, one purse, and one dormitory. But as many of them began to abate of the strictness of their first rules, a new sect sprang up, that pretended to reform upon the rest, and these were called Regular, whereas the others, by way of reproach, were styled Secular. When Canons began, is not certain ; but the first Regulars we read of, are those whom Pope Alexander II. sent from Lucca to John Lateran. The Regular Canons were so irregular, and guilty of such abominable crimes, that even Pope Boniface VIII, was forced to drive them away, and for the peace of the Church, to place Secular Canons in their room. Beriners, in the year 636, first introduced those Augustinians into England, who strictly followed the example of their brethren of John Lateran. Pramonstratenses. — They followed the same rule with the former, were founded by Norbert, about the year 1120, at a place which the Virgin pointed out to him, and which therefore was pre-monstre, or foreshown. These monks, to get a greater esteem in the world after the death of their founder, published that he had received his rule, curiously bound in gold, from the hands of Austin himself, who appeared to him one night, and said thus : " Here is the rule that I have written, and if my brethren observe it, they, like my children, need to fear nothing at all in the day of judgment." Indeed, those fathers, for their great security in the last day, have firmly adhered to one of his precepts, that commands them to love one another. What confirms this suspicion is, their declaration in the year 1273 ; in which, after having acknowledged that women are worse than the most venomous aspics and dragons, they resolved never to have any more to do with them. Gilbertines. — The next order is that of Gilbert, a little crooked schoolmaster, born in Lincolnshire, who, by reason of his deformity, despairing to bring the women to answer his lewd inclinations in a secular manner, was resolved to make religion subservient to his 960 APPENDIX. purposes; and to this end he founded thirteen monasteries, containing both sexes together, to the number of seven hundred men, and fifteen hundred women. This order of the Gilbertines, was established at Seraprmgham, in 1148, and was thence called the Sempringham order ; but their disgusting characteristics exhibit such an outrage on common decency, that delicacy compels us to suppress further* par- ticulars. r Mathurines.— They were so called from their founder John Matha. were likewise styled Trinitarians, because they lay under an obliga- tion ot dedicating all their churches to the Holy Trinity ; they pro- fessed the rules of Austin, and added to them several others ; amonu- which is that remarkable one of riding upon an ass, the only thin* in which I can find that those fathers imitated Christ. They were instituted in the year 1257. The professed original design of their establishment, was for the enlargement of captives ; and whatsoever substance fell into their hands, was to be divided into three equal parts ; one of which was to be remitted to Christian slaves for their redemption, whilst the other two were to remain in possession of these charitable bankers, as a satisfaction for their great pains in making sucn a return, which a merciful Jew would have done more faithfully and for a tenth part of the reward. But, two parts in three bein°- too scanty a recompence for the great toil of a lazy friar, those Mathu- rines, having no other God but money, to approve themselves true Trinitarians to that deity, often cheated the poor captive of his thiid part, rather than they would divide the substance. This was the ceremony of the Ass. In several churches in France, in early ages, they celebrated a festival in commemoration of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt. It was called the Feast of the Ass. A young girl richly dressed, with a child in her arms, was set upon an ass superbly caparisoned ; the ass was led to the altar in solemn procession ; High Mass was said in great pomp ; the ass was taught to kneel in proper places ; a hymn, no less childish than impious, was sung in his praise ; and when the ceremony was ended, the priest, instead of the usual words with which he dismissed the peo- ple, brayed three times like an ass; and the people, instead of their usual response, we bless the Lord, brayed three times in the same manner. This ridiculous ceremony was not, like the festival of fools and some other pageants of those ages, a mere farcical entertainment exhibited in a church, and mingled, as was then the custom, with an imitation of some religious rites. It was an act of devotion performed by the ministers of Romanism, and by the authority of the Church. Thoseeight religious orders grasped the greater part of the property in England. Four other monkish tribes held no possessions of their own, but being like the frogs in Egypt in numbers and ubiquity, virtually were masters of the" island, as it was deemed a crime equal to sacrilege, to deny them admission to any place which they con- descended to honor with their presence. Franciscans.— The Franciscans, or Grav Friars, were instituted in the year 1206, by Francis, whose first prank of holiness was robbino- his father, for which pious act being disinherited, he, like a true ranter, stript himself stark naked, and ran away towaids a chapel near Assisy in Umbria, where being a beggar himself, he be