[57] There is a Life of Palafox, published at Paris, in 1767.
The design of the unknown author is evidently to mortify and
prejudice the Jesuits by exalting the character of one of their
earliest and fiercest opponents. The author is, however, either
an ardent fanatic of the Jansenist party, and as superstitious
as those he wishes to expose; or he promotes the cause of the
Philosophers of France and Spain by affecting devotion, and
conciliating many true believers to the measure of suppressing
the Jesuits.--Palafox was the illegitimate child of Don Jayme
de Palafox y Mendoza, by a lady of rank, who, to conceal her
pregnancy, retired to the waters of Fitero in Navarre, and being
delivered on the 24th June, 1600, to avoid the scandal, took
the wicked resolution of drowning her child in the neighbouring
river. The woman employed to perpetrate this murder was detected
before she effected her purpose, the child saved, and brought up
by an old dependant of the house of Ariza till he was ten years
old, when his father returned from Rome, acknowledged, relieved,
and educated him at Alcalá and Salamanca. His mother became a
nun of the barefooted Carmelite order. Palafox was introduced at
Court, and to the Count Duke de Olivares in 1626, and was soon
after named to the council of India. An illness of his paternal
sister, the funeral of two remarkable men, and the piety of his
mother, made such impression upon him, that he gave himself up
to the most fervent devotion, and soon after took orders. He
became chaplain to the Queen of Hungary, Philip IVth’s sister,
and travelled through Italy, Germany, Flanders, and France. In
1639, he was consecrated Bishop of Angelopolis, or Puebla de los
Angeles, in America. His first quarrel with the Jesuits was on
the subject of tithes. Lands on which tithes were payable had
been alienated in favour of the Company, and they pretended, that
when once the property of their body, they were exempt from that
tax. The second ground was a pretended privilege of the Jesuits
to preach without the permission of the Diocesan, against which
Palafox contended. The Jesuits, having the Viceroy of New Spain
on their side, obliged Palafox to fly; on which occasion he
wrote his celebrated letters against his enemies. A brief of the
Pope in his favour did not prevent his being recalled in civil
terms, by the King. At the petition of the Jesuits, who dreaded
his return to America, the King named him to the bishopric of
Osma. Of the austerity and extravagance of his principles, the
following resolutions of the pious bishop are specimens: Not to
admit any woman to his presence, and never to speak to one but
with his eyes on the ground, and the door open. Never to pay
a woman a compliment, but when the not doing so would appear
singular or scandalous; and never to look a female in the face.
Whenever compelled to visit a woman, to wear a cross with sharp
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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