Lives of the Most Eminent Foreign Statesmen, 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 Excerpt: ...and, after having separated the falser part of the accusation, to see whether there was enough left to justify that act of severity, which was soon followed by another still more deep and fatal to the society. No doubt can exist that clamour and prejudice were as busy against them as argument and reason. They were represented as excessively wealthy, when in reality they were poor: many of the other charges were probably equally unfounded, and many were very doubtful. But clamour and prejudice are at all times, and have been, in almost all states of society that the world has yet seen, two of the most potent engines in every conflict of opinions. Numbers of persons came over to the views of Carvalho, Choiseul, and other statesmen. Catholic Spain itself repudiated the Jesuits, Naples also rejected them altogether from its bosomy and even Venice and the empire at length raised their voices to demand the suppression of the order. Clement XIII., however, continued throughout his life to give them his firm support, and nothing that could be done to disgust him with this tenacity had the slightest effect in shaking his resolution. It was in vain that France deprived him of Avignon; it was in vain that Naples seized upon Benevento; it was in vain that every country in the rest of Europe vomited forth into the papal states the crowd of hungry, impoverished, and exiled ecclesiastics, which they cast out from their own bosom, forfeiting their possessions with ravenous avidity, and but the more virulent against them from disappointment of plunder; Clement still remained firmly their friend; but his life was drawing to a close, and, in the year 1769, his death left the papal chair vacant. The conclave that followed was even more full of intrigues than a conclave usually...