In 1681, Noyelle, “who had not the same brilliant qualities as his predecessors,”[320] succeeded Oliva, and was himself succeeded, in 1687, by Gonzales, a harsh theologian, who died in 1705, and had for his successor Father Tambourini. Nothing remarkable happened during the rule of these generals; at least nothing that presents us with any new feature in the history we are writing. The Company followed the course it had entered upon, and marched with steady step towards its proper ruin. Not that there was any apparent sign of decay. The Society was, on the contrary, more powerful, more courted than ever. But its power did not lie any longer in its intrinsic merits, or its adaptation to the wants of humanity; and the interest and respect by which it seemed to be surrounded was ephemeral, and in some degree compulsory. With a few sincere devotees there was a crowd of courtiers who flattered for their own interest. The Company resembled an all-powerful minister, hated for his personal qualities, but worshipped and extolled to the skies by the crowd of those who fear his power or await his favour, impatient till the sovereign frown upon him, that they may manifest their real sentiments. Such was the state of the Society of Jesus during the seventeenth century. CHAPTER XV. 1700-1772. DOWNFALL OF THE JESUITS. We have brought down our history to the beginning of the eighteenth century, an epoch in which the power and greatness of the Society of Jesus had, by a gradual march, ascended to a point from which, following the law inherent in all human things, it could not but decline; for institutions, empires, and nations, have, as well as man himself, their successive periods of infancy, youth, manhood, old age, and decrepitude; and if institutions, doctrines, or nations, revive after their moral death, they never regain the same degree of force and vitality which they possessed when rising to the maturity of their power. According to this constant rule, it was evident to any profound observer that the Jesuits had attained that height from which they must inevitably descend; but, as always happens, they never dreamed of their impending fate, and scorned the sinister forebodings of some of their number who foresaw and predicted it. Then, when these predictions proved true, they laid the blame of their fall upon every one but its real authors—themselves; for it is to them that must be attributed the ruin of their institution. To the causes of decay which we have stated, we must add that which was perhaps the principal one—namely, that the Jesuits, once in possession of power, remitted their prodigious activity, for which they had been so remarkable at the commencement of their institution, and even disregarded those arts by which they had obtained that power. Even the Instruction, that all-powerful engine which had so admirably served their purposes, was neglected, and had lost its original character. It was no longer