The blows which were inflicted on the Jesuits by the Catholic monarchs of Portugal, Spain, and France during the eighteenth century are historically insignificant in comparison with the suppression of the Society by the papacy. It is easy to suggest for the conduct of the rulers reasons which conceal the misdeeds of the Jesuits. Was not Louis XV. an immoral and unscrupulous ruler, and had not liberalism pervaded every stratum of higher French society? Was not Joseph I. of Portugal an unprincipled voluptuary, an irresolute pupil of a minister who could stoop to forgery? Was not Charles of Spain deluded by a sceptical minister in collusion with Pombal and Choiseul? Did they not force the King of Naples to follow their example, and win the Austrian Emperor with the prospect of appropriating the vast wealth of the Society? So the excuses run; and it is added that these combined monarchs at length brought such pressure to bear upon a Pope, whose election they had secured, that, solely for the sake of peace, without blaming the Jesuits, he reluctantly penned the famous brief of abolition. We have seen that this version of the destruction of the Society, as far as the Catholic monarchs are concerned, may have some ingenuity in the pages of an apologist, but could not without absurdity be put forward as history. Definite, grave, and irremediable grievances were proved against the Jesuits in each country in which they were suppressed. We have now to see that the last part of the apologetic version is equally untrue. It is not true that the Powers secured the election of Clement XIV.; it is not true that he was pledged to destroy the Society; and it is not true that he destroyed it for the sake of peace, without pronouncing on the merit of the charges against it. We shall find rather that the action of Clement XIV. was the natural culmination of the attitude of the best Popes toward the Society, that it was represented by him as such, and that, in condemning the Society, he collected all the grave charges which were urged against it, and endorsed them with the papal authority. The general fortunes of the Society in Italy until the middle of the eighteenth century do not merit detailed examination. One undistinguished General succeeded another in the nominal autocracy of the supreme office, but the policy of the Society was, at least after the time of Acquaviva, dictated by the assistants and abler men at Rome. The Society of Jesus is an aristocracy, not an autocracy. The charge of despotism is not unjust, if we do not forget how frequently this despotism has been checked by rebellious "subjects," but it is the despotism of a few, whose decisions are published by the General. An incident that occurred toward the close of the seventeenth century will illustrate this.