One can not refrain from wondering why Pius VII did not pause long enough to inquire, "Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, that he is grown so great?" What source of pontifical authority existed in his behalf that did not also exist in behalf of Clement XIV? The one was no more pope than the other--no more infallible than the other--possessed no higher official prerogatives than the other. They were equals in power and official dignity. If Clement XIV had _suspended_ the society, then it would have been within the power of Pius VII to set aside the suspension and revive the society. But he went further, and in the most emphatic and express terms, _suppressed, abolished, annulled, and extinguished it forever_. His official act was valid, complete, and final, in compliance with the Canon law and established custom. The society, therefore, had no legal existence according to the law of the Church, but was dead and extinct when Pius VII became pope. Its constitution was then a nullity. He had rightfully only the power possessed by Paul III when he first established the society; and by exercising this power could have organized a new society and granted it a new constitution. Instead of this he "_re-established_" the defunct society, at the request of King Ferdinand, thereby assuming the prerogative right to review and annul what Clement XIV had done within the scope of his legitimate authority. In order to do this, he had further to assume that Clement XIV had exceeded his authority, and had acted injuriously towards the Church, by depriving it of "the vigorous and experienced rowers" necessary to save it from "shipwreck and death." This was, in effect, to approve the Jesuit defamation of Clement XIV, and to deny his infallibility. It was, moreover, an implied approval of the rebellion of the Jesuits against the authority of the Church during the forty-one years that had elapsed after the abolition of their society. It was an attempt to cover up, sanction, and legitimate that rebellion, and to reward the society for its persistent defiance of the Church and the Canon law, by galvanizing its dead body into life.