Torrigiani obeyed Ricci’s injunction to the letter. When after some days’ sailing the first vessels arrived before Civita Vecchia, they were received by cannon shot. The poor Jesuits, who thought they were near the end of their sufferings, and had smiled at the sight of the promised land, were furious when they saw themselves rejected from a country in which they knew that their General had the utmost influence, and loudly accused him of being the author of all their miseries. The Spanish commander, not wishing to employ violence, and to land by force of arms, coasted away towards Leghorn and Genoa, but there too they were refused a landing. A similar fate was reserved for them on their first approach to Corsica; and only after having been for six long months at the mercy of the winds and waves, were those unfortunate monks, decimated by illness, fatigue, and old age, permitted to disembark in Corsica, lately ceded by Genoa to France, and where Paoli at that same moment had begun to fight for independence. The King of Naples and the Duke of Parma, both of the house of Bourbon, the former in the month of November 1767, the latter in the beginning of 1768, resorted to the same measures as France and Spain, and the Jesuits were expelled from their estates. At the news of these repeated outrages, as he considered them, the old Pope, driven to extremities, and instigated by the Jesuits, resolved on an act of vigour, to test what the Supreme Pontiff could do for the sons of his predilection. It seems that he could not summon courage enough to strike the blow against France, Spain, or Naples, but he thought he could dare anything against the Duke of Parma. He did not view him in the light of a grandson of France and infant of Spain, but as a Farnese, over whose dukedom the Roman See had always, if not exercised, at least claimed, the right of suzerainty. In this persuasion, he published a “monitorium,” wherein he pronounced ecclesiastical censures against his vassal, and declared that he had forfeited his estates. Charles and Louis were aghast at the boldness of the old Pope, and although the indolent Louis shewed no great resolution to resent the insult, Choiseul and Charles contrived to stir up his indignation, representing to him the scorn which would fall on the house of Bourbon, if a son of a Venetian merchant (Clement) should insult with impunity a grandson of St Louis.[356] In consequence, the ambassadors of the three courts, France, Spain, and Naples, had orders to present to the Pope a memorial, asking him to revoke the “monitorium,” or to expect to see some of his estates confiscated. Torrigiani and the Jesuit partisans, who knew the demand that was going to be addressed to the Pope, fearing lest the old man should yield, represented to him how glorious it would be to uprear again the tiara, humbled by Benedict XIV., before the secular powers, and made him even descry in the distance the crown of martyrdom, an honour which the