And this feeling against them was strongly reinforced by their efforts to secure the property of other monastic bodies. We saw how Ignatius himself had set an example by endeavouring to get the estates of the Benedictines in England, and how constantly this charge is made against the Society. In 1629, Ferdinand II. ordered the Protestants of his dominions to restore ecclesiastical property; and we learn from the decree of Pope Urban VIII. that the Jesuits were "the chief authors of the imperial edict." The Benedictines, Cistercians, and Premonstratensians at once began to claim their property, and were not a little agitated when the "chief authors" of the edict succeeded in getting from the Pope an order that they were to share in the division. The Emperor's confessor was, of course, a Jesuit (Lamormaini), and it is admitted by their apologist that they secured the "best part" of the restored property. To cover their lack of moral or legal title to this property, the Jesuits freely reproached the older orders with corruption and decadence, and a war of pamphlets was maintained for many years. From these publications we learn some remarkable stories of Jesuit procedure. At Voltigerode in Saxony some Bernardine nuns had, in 1631, obtained one of the restored houses. The Jesuit fathers persuaded them that the building was unsafe, and, when the nuns retired, claimed it as "abandoned property." The nuns returned, however, and a very lively scene was witnessed. The Jesuits brought the police, and the nuns, who clung valiantly to the seats of the chapel, were physically dragged out of the building. The Cistercian monks afterwards took up the case and secured the expulsion of the Jesuits. At Prague the Jesuits coveted a handsome Cistercian abbey, and persuaded the Emperor that only a half-dozen degenerate monks occupied the vast establishment. An imperial commissary was sent, and found that there were sixty-one monks and thirteen novices in the abbey. The angry Jesuits, who accompanied the commissary, protested that the abbot had put the monastic dress on his farm-labourers; but the Cistercians held their ground and obtained the protection of the Emperor. The Vicar-General of the Order of Cluny reported a large number of these fraudulent attempts of the Jesuits to obtain the property of his monks; and we have civic and ecclesiastical documents relating to great numbers of similar cases in France, Germany, and Switzerland in the early part of the seventeenth century.[21]