The Spanish Jesuits thus prevented from going to Rome, the General Congregation, as we have said, was postponed. This began the strife. Private ambition broke forth, and threw the community into great confusion. The revolt was headed by the violent Bobadilla. He prevailed upon Rodriguez, Brouet, and two or three others, to join him in reproaching the tyranny and despotism of Lainez. They pretended that he had no right to possess, alone, the supreme authority, which ought to reside in all the surviving founders of the order till a General was elected. Pamphlets were addressed to the Pope, accusing the Vicar-General of entertaining the design to repair to Spain for the purpose of holding the Congregation, and of establishing the seat of the order in that country. The Pope, upon this announcement, became furious; he thundered imprecations against the Society; and when Lainez presented himself to have an audience, he refused to see him, and ordered him to give up, within three days, all the constitutions and ordinances of the Society, with the name of every professed member resident at Rome, and forbade any one of the latter to leave the capital. The storm, it is evident, was gaining strength, but Lainez was an expert and skilful pilot. Inferior to Loyola in natural gifts, in firmness of character, in boldness and energy, he was his superior in cunning, in reflection, in patience. Ignatius, the imperious ex-officer, in the same circumstances, would have scourged Bobadilla, dismissed some rioters from the Society, and obliged the others to fall at his feet and ask forgiveness. The politician Lainez avoided combat in an open field, hoping to gain the battle by stratagem. He quietly and stealthily got possession of all Bobadilla’s writings on the subject,[113] learned from them what were his enemies’ projects, prepared his means of defence accordingly, detached Rodriguez and Brouet from Bobadilla’s interest by caresses and promises, sent the latter to reform a convent of Franciscan friars at Foligno, and condemned Gorgodanuz, the most pertinacious of the rebels, to say one pater noster and one ave Maria! When a cardinal related this fact to the Pope, Paul crossed himself as at something strange and prodigious.[114] Sacchini pretends that the Pope made the sign of the cross, being filled with wonder at the blindness of the rebels; but assuredly Paul was struck at the supremely cunning policy of the Vicar-General.[115] The revolt was, however, subdued, the Pope appeased, and soon after the war was also brought to an end. The Duke of Alva, that sanguinary and ferocious butcher of the Belgians, conqueror of the Papal troops and of the allied armies, entered vanquished Rome, craved for an audience of the Pontiff, threw himself at his feet, and implored his forgiveness for having dared to fight against him. What a strange piece of contradiction is man!