Nickel, elected General in 1652, was a rude and obstinate man. He did not, indeed, contemplate any very deep or searching reforms; he suffered things to proceed, on the whole, as they had previously done; but it was his habit to insist on the observance of his orders with peculiar obstinacy, without having any regard to the feelings of others, and he offended so grievously the self-love of the aristocratic part of the Society, that the General Congregation of 1661 adopted measures against him, such as, from the monarchical character of the institution, could hardly have been supposed possible.[312] The Congregation, desirous of setting Nickel aside, and yet unwilling to pronounce a deposition, applied to the Pope for permission to elect a vicar-general, and Innocent X. not only granted their request, but pointed out for the office his friend Oliva, who was accordingly elected. Then the Congregation, having decided that the vicar-general should possess a _primitive_ power, independent of the General, the authority of the latter was wholly superseded, and entirely transferred to the vicar; so that, when some Jesuits went to pay their respects to Nickel, he, in a lamentable tone, said to them, “I find myself here entirely abandoned, and have no longer power to do anything.”[313] It is curious, if not instructive (the veracity of the Jesuit historians being very well known), to listen to Crétineau’s account of this transaction. “Nickel,” says the French historian, “felt that he was growing old, that his infirmities no longer permitted him to govern with the required vigour; he begged of the Jesuits to discharge him from a responsibility too great for him, by giving him an assistant; and they acceded to his prayers.”[314] Nickel survived his disgrace three years, and Oliva became General.