crime, but that it is _pious, useful, holy, in its pursuits, in its laws, in its maxims_.”[354] Charles answered that he alone knew the crimes of the Society, and that he would keep them concealed in his own breast, to spare Christendom a great scandal.[355] Clement returned to his tears, and this was all that was left him to do in favour of his children. [Illustration: _Lorenzo Ricci._ _Hinchliff._] However, there was a man in Rome who would not witness the ruin of the Company of Jesus without attempting a desperate effort to save it. This man was Ricci, the General. Ricci was a morose, obstinate, and narrow-minded bigot, extremely jealous of his authority, and altogether incapable of appreciating either circumstances or persons. Unlike Acquaviva, he placed all his glory in never yielding an inch of ground; and to partial loss, he preferred an entire ruin. Acquaviva would have by some timely concession deferred for a while the impending storm. Ricci accelerated its march by his intractability. “Let them be as they are, or not at all”—these words shew the man. And now that his disciples were expelled from a part of Europe, he, to save the Society, if possible, decided upon sacrificing some thousands of individuals. Either the persecution, which he studied to render more cruel, and in some measure effective, would bring the Pope, the other sovereigns, or the different populations, to some acts of energy, to retrieve the affairs of the order, or it must incur the last distressful consequences. He would submit to every extremity rather than to humiliation. In consequence, he obliged Torrigiani, whom he seems to have kept under a severe yoke (if the Cardinal received, or had received money, we can understand it), to write to the Spanish minister that his Holiness would not permit the Jesuits to land on his estates. Charles paid little attention to the letter, and gave orders to the commander of the fleet to land them, if necessary, by force of arms.